


No Retribution

by MadxHatterx94



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:04:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadxHatterx94/pseuds/MadxHatterx94
Summary: The dead are walking. The living prey on the weak. Thea Ellis's, like everyone else's, has been turned upside down. The hard part is coping with this new world and the reality that people are not who they used to be. Thea is not who she used to be, and she can't decide if that's a good thing or not. "You don't get to come back from the things you do." (Eventual Daryl/OC)Originally posted on fanfiction.net





	1. Run-In With Fate

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than my OC Thea Ellis and her storyline. The rights to The Walking Dead remain solely with Robert Kirkman and co.

There weren't a lot of things left in the world these days that made comfort come easily, not like before the end. Part of losing everything that was once so simple and taken for granted was that it made it obvious that something had been taken away that should never have been. Trying to grasp some sort of normalcy in the chaotic version of reality that the world had become seemed like trying to successfully catch a handful of smoke; pointless and a waste of time.

Thea was no stranger to loss prior to the end of the world, but that didn't exactly make it easy to take in the fact that the dead had suddenly come back to gnaw at the flesh of the living. No, loss wasn't something that would ever come easy and if it ever did then that was when there was a serious problem.

She wasn't sure exactly how long it had been since the turn, or how many of those walking the earth were still alive and breathing, but she was well aware of the fact that things would never be the same even if there ended up being some miraculous cure and the world was saved. There was no coming back from this.

One of the strangest things about this new world was the lack of rules. In the old days the fact that she was standing in a dimly lit pharmacy shoving prescriptions into her pack would have landed her in some serious hot water, but now it was perfectly normal and to be expected. So normal, in fact, that she had been more than a little surprised to find that the shelves behind the pharmacist's counter were still fully stocked.

It wasn't like she was complaining.

Thea had just shoved a large pill bottle containing antibiotics into the rapidly filling front pocket of her blue backpack when she heard the squeak of shoes on the tile floor near the front of the store. She froze for just a moment to listen but only found silence; maybe she had been imagining things.

Just as she began to reach for another bottle a hushed sound came from the same direction. Slowly zipping her bag closed to keep the noise from alerting whoever, or whatever, was now in the store with her, she reached down to grab the red axe she had propped up against shelf and slipped the pack back onto her back and secured the clip across her torso.

Thea turned and made her way towards the back door she had noticed earlier, always a good idea to know your exits, to make a quick getaway. Sure she could handle one dead guy but if it wasn't necessary she did her best to avoid any and all contact with any of the infected. That's what she called them at first, the infected, because that's what they were. Now however? Dead was not the same as sick and she didn't have a name for them.

As she moved between shelves she heard a dull thud in the wall above her head. Her eyes followed the noise and she stifled a gasp at the arrow that was now sunk into the drywall just inches from where her head had just been.

So it wasn't a dead one, but she had come to find that the living were often more dangerous these days. She needed to leave now.

She ducked low as she moved quickly towards the door, the grip on the handle of her axe tightening in preparation; if she had to defend herself she would, it wouldn't be the first time.

She was at the door when she heard a muttered curse, glanced back to see a dark figure pull the arrow from the wall, and then shoved the door open and ran out into the alleyway which was thankfully dead guy free.

It wasn't empty however, and she had to skid to a halt to avoid running headfirst into a large black man holding a crowbar. He was standing at the closest end of the alley and upon seeing her his eyes widened.

"Hey!" he called as she turned to escape down the opposite side of the alleyway.

Thea jumped to the side as she passed by the door she'd just exited. It flung open to reveal a man with dark hair and a crossbow, but she didn't pause to study him fully. Instead she took off at full speed, knocking several boxes down to block their path should they attempt to follow her.

"Get back here!"

Not bothering to turn to see which of the men was the one to shout at her she rounds the corner leading out into the street and pauses for just a second to check that the coast is clear. When she's sure there aren't any more threats nearby she chooses to circle the store to go back to the side she'd left the bicycle she'd stolen.

Looking back she would realize how that was not a smart move.

As she passed by the front door of the shop she'd just vacated she felt a body slam into hers from the side. She landed on the pavement hard, a loud grunt escaping her lips as her side slammed into the metal pole holding up a parking meter and her axe skidded across the sidewalk out of reach. There was someone on her back holding her down but they didn't seem to have much strength, so she threw an elbow back to get them off.

It connected with the hard bone of the man's jaw and he let out a cry of pain, his grip loosening just enough for Thea to crawl towards her axe. Just as her hand grasped the handle, a boot stepped forward onto the head to prevent her from lifting the weapon and the silver blade of a sword came down to point in her face; a warning.

"Get up slowly," a woman spoke, her voice deep and serious as if the sword wasn't threatening enough.

If she hadn't been before, Thea knew for sure she was screwed now. She released her grip on the axe handle and lifted herself onto her hands and knees at a slow pace, her head remained bowed and her eyes locked on the sharp steel pointed at her nose. She put her hands up first, palms out, and then rose to her feet.

Her eyes were the last to finally lift from where she had been staring at several specks of blood on end of the woman's sword, and she found the owner of the weapon to be a tough looking black woman with long dreadlocks and a steady glare directed right at her. Was this her executioner? Was this the one who would end it all for her after so long of fighting to stay alive?

To her left stood a younger looking guy with sandy blonde curls and an anxious look on his face as if he wasn't sure what they would be doing with her, his eyes flickered towards the dark skinned woman several times before landing on Thea expectantly.

"Who are you?" The woman asked as footfalls indicated the two men from the alley and the store now approached.

Thea didn't respond, her eyes flickering down to her axe as if she might have a shot at grabbing it. Her hand twitched at her side and she wondered if she would have enough time to pull her knife from its sheath or if the woman would slice her head off before she even got the strap unsnapped.

The question was repeated, the sword inched closer, the air closed around her like a cocoon she couldn't escape. It had been so long since she had seen another living person and now there were four of them ganging up on her…

She felt the air leave her lungs in short gasps and her feet moved backwards against her will. She stepped off the curb onto the street and stumbled back against a car, the sun now directly in her eyes; a hand she realized was her own rose to block it and she could see the sword lower to the woman's side slowly.

"You okay?" a male voice asked.

It was the black man from the alley and when she peered through her fingers at him she saw that he had genuine concern on his face, which confused her. Weren't they going to kill her or steal her things and leave her helpless?

The sun had been setting before and now seemed to disappear in seconds behind the store and then she could see them all clearly. Her breathing was normal once again, as if that one simple question had calmed her completely. She took in a deep gulp of air and then locked eyes with the woman, who had once again asked for her name.

"Thea," she responded evenly, her voice thankfully not betraying the nerves she felt. "Thea Ellis."

The blonde man pointed to himself and then the others, giving out their names like it was free candy. "I'm Zach. This is Tyreese, Daryl, and Michonne."

Thea glanced at the others slowly but her eyes ended up on Michonne again, that sword still gripped tightly in the woman's hand.

"You alone?"

The question sparked a small amount of fear in her heart; did she answer truthfully and allow them to have the freedom to attack her or did she lie and say others would be waiting for her? Did she miss out on the opportunity of possibly joining a group where there was safety in numbers if she lied? Would they kill her if she was alone?

"Yes," she finally answered when she decided she would rather die an honest woman than live alone as a liar.

Michonne shared a glance with Daryl, the man who had shot an arrow at Thea's head, and the man nodded before the woman spoke again, asking another question as if that was all she knew how to do.

"How many walkers have you killed?"

Thea cocked her head curiously. "Walkers?"

A snort came from Zach. "Geeks, biters, dead bastards…whatever else anyone calls them." He explained.

The question was odd, but she could play along. "I haven't kept count. Just the ones I couldn't get away from."

Michonne tightened her grip on the katana and raised the blade just slightly before speaking again.

"How many people have you killed?" she wondered, her gaze hardened as she tried to assess Thea for anything that might indicate she was about to lie.

The other woman gulped, her eyes found the sword momentarily. "Two. Just two." She admitted.

"Why?" Daryl asked suddenly, the first time he had spoken the entire time.

Thea found she couldn't meet his hard eyes as she spoke. "They were bitten. I didn't want them to suffer and they didn't want to be one of those…things."

She bowed her head and waited for them to decide that she was a murderer who deserved to be left behind. A killer who needed to be punished. Something along those lines.

In the end, they didn't come to either of those conclusions and the one they did arrive upon surprised her.

"We have a safe place. You can come with us if you'd like." Michonne said softly, replacing her katana in its sheath slowly and expertly. "It's safer than being alone."

Thea met the other woman's eyes hoping to spot some sort of lie that would tell her that the safe haven they offered was really some sort of trap, but she couldn't find any sort of malice there and she knew that this was the only chance she would have of really surviving this whole thing. Of course she would join them, but how long would she be able to stay before things went south? How safe was this place really?

She would have to find out, if she died in the process then perhaps that was better than any other fate she might have to face on her own. Maybe things were looking up for her. Maybe they weren't.


	2. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and CO.

Before the world had decided to end Thea had been living a great life; sure there had been some struggles but that was to be expected. Someone once told her that if she wasn't suffering for her dreams then she hadn't chosen the right path and that was something she had taken to heart.

She wasn't exactly from a normal 'all-American' background, especially considering she was born and raised in England. She'd lived there for sixteen years before her parents had decided to relocate the family to the states, West Virginia to be exact, and that had gone over about as well as one could expect a teenaged girl being moved across the ocean could go.

She remembered her parents telling her that this was better, that the new job her father had taken was worth uprooting their lives; she hadn't believed them at the time of course. Once she had gone on to a prestigious medical school and then done her surgical internship at one of the best hospitals on the east coast she could see clearly what her parents meant.

Thea had been visiting her little sister in Georgia when the world had gone to shit. Catherine was always the more adventurous of the two Ellis sisters and after graduating high school ended up following her then boyfriend to the state. He had been accepted to Georgia Tech and Cat hadn't even applied anywhere; she was the carefree one after all.

Kyle Miller and Catherine Ellis married after his first semester of college and six months later little Henry Miller was born, but Thea could tell they were happy and Kyle treated her sister right so that was all that mattered to her. Cathy always was the one to live life to its fullest.

* * *

_"Hank, slow down, okay?" Cat called out to the wayward toddler as he barreled towards the pond with a bag full of scraps of bread clutched tightly in one tiny hand._

_Thea grinned as she watched him merely glance back at his mother in response, his pace remained the same. They were on the Georgia Tech campus waiting for Kyle to get done with a test so they could go out somewhere and celebrate the end of Thea's internship, passing her boards, and the beginning of her residency._

_Cat snorted in a very unladylike manner and stuffed her iPhone into her back pocket. "He doesn't listen very well. I think he gets that from his Aunt Thea." She teased and bumped her shoulder against the older woman's._

_"Yeah, that's accurate." She replied sarcastically, her eyes turning pointedly towards her sister who was in fact the only Ellis sibling to cause their parents extreme grief and worry; adventurous and wild Cathy Ellis._

_The younger of the two laughed lightly and nodded in agreement, fully aware of the truth. Catherine was wise beyond her years, another reason Thea had been so surprised when she found out that college was not something in the blonde girl's sights._

_They stopped beside the pond and watched Hank throw chunks of bread crust at the ducks. He reared his arm back and thrust it forward forcefully but the crusts never went further than a few feet in front of him. It made Thea laugh._

_"Now that you've finished your internship, you think you'll be popping out some of your own little brats soon?" Catherine wondered, her accent even fainter than any other member of the family since she had spent more of her life in America than England._

_It was Thea's turn to snort and she stuffed her hands in the pockets of her jacket and shook her head. "God no. You think I have time for children now? There's no way in hell I would try and rear a child while in the beginning of a surgical residency; I'm not mental."_

_Cat cut her eyes at her sister and shook her head again. "At this rate you'll be forty before you have children." She muttered. "Hank will be so much older than his cousins!"_

_Thea was about to respond to that, tell her that if Henry ended up being that much older than her own children then he could just babysit, when a piercing scream erupted from across the grassy hill that students used as a place to hang or study. She whipped her head around to see what was going on and spotted it, a young girl writhing in pain as another student ripped into her shoulder from behind with his teeth. Blood sprayed from the wound as flesh tore from muscle and bone, the girl's screams became horrific as a second girl attached her teeth to a flailing arm._

_"Oh god," Cathy gasped, hands lifted to cover her mouth as they watched a young college student be eaten alive._

_Thea grabbed her sister's shoulder and shoved her towards the pond, her eyes never left the horrific scene before her. "Quick, grab Hank. We need to go now."_

* * *

"You getting all settled in?" Tyreese's voice interrupted her memory as he came to stand in the open doorway of the cell that had been deemed hers.

The 'safe place' the group that had recruited her mentioned just happened to be a very large prison. It was kind of perfect in that it was relatively off the grid and surrounded by tall chain-link fences, the outer ring of which had barbed wire across the top. Thea found it comical, to say the least, that civilians would find themselves running into a prison to find safety and survival.

She wondered if any of the inhabitants had been locked up here before the turn.

Turning to face the large man blocking the light from the windows, Thea stood from the bottom bunk with a nod. "Yeah, it's great, thank you." She replied hesitantly, glancing around at the monochromatic color scheme and the metal sink/toilet combination in the corner.

Tyreese seemed to notice the look on her face and chuckled softly.

"It takes some getting used to, I know. Hard to believe this is actually what we call home now." He was quick to comment, clearly trying to make her feel better about not being sure about her new 'room'.

She faced him again and smiled, more than grateful that he didn't think she was being picky about the living situations after being rescued. This was technically the best set up she had been in since before she could remember; she'd been shacking up in vehicles, attics, and gas station bathrooms for a while now as she had gone from place to place. This was definitely an improvement by far.

"I just came to tell you that dinner is ready if you want to join us outside."

And then he was gone, giving her space should she decide that she didn't want to eat with the group after all. But it wasn't like she could say no, they had taken her in graciously and given her a bed of her own and now they were going to feed her. If she said no to that it could possibly result in banishment…right?

She quickly decided that the notion was a bit ridiculous, but she still felt she needed to try and meet some more people at dinner and talk to those she already knew. She had met Carol, an older woman with a kind smile and short, gray hair; Karen a beautiful brunette who was obviously very in love with Tyreese; Glenn and Maggie who were married and absolutely adorable with each other as well as very welcoming to her; and then Herschel, Maggie's father who had welcomed Thea with kind words and apparently lost his leg to a walker bite.

'Walker', that's what this group called the dead ones. She figured that was much better than literally calling them 'the dead ones' or 'the infected', and she may just adopt the term during her time here.

The cell they had given her was up the stairs and all the way in the far corner of Cell Block C so it wasn't that far of a walk out to the courtyard where most everyone had gathered to eat. Earlier Karen had shown her to the bathrooms where they had set up some sort of irrigation system with troughs and hoses. They had actually managed to make working showers and it didn't matter that they only had cold water, Thea had been washing in either streams or when things were bad with just a few drops of water on some cloth. She'd taken a much needed shower and felt a thousand times better, meeting new people wouldn't be so bad now that she was smelling fresh and her hair was no longer a greasy mess matted to her head and neck.

When she had collected a bowl of rice with what looked to be some sort of meat she realized that this was basically like her first day of school in America all over again; everyone was seated and stories were being exchanged, she didn't know where to sit or if she should just go back to her cell to eat. It felt incredibly awkward standing there where Carol was dishing out food with her eyes wandering the area for somewhere to put herself out of the way.

She finally spotted an empty spot on one of the steel bleachers that was set up facing what used to be a basketball court for the inmates. Everyone else had mostly gathered around one end of the metal seating and were chatting while others were sitting at the tables beneath the awning by Carol.

Thea kept her head down and made her way to the spot she'd picked but only got about halfway there when she heard Glenn call her name. She lifted her head to find him waving her over to where he sat with Maggie, Tyreese, Karen, and a man she hadn't met yet. He was holding a baby on his lap and beside him sat a young boy wearing a wide brimmed hat who she had seen earlier when they arrived.

She glanced towards the empty bleachers again and wondered if she could just ignore him and go over there, but ultimately figured that wouldn't be taken well with the group and so she turned to join the others at their table.

Glenn moved to sit beside Tyreese which left her to sit beside Maggie in his now empty seat. She smiled politely, or rather awkwardly, at the group and slid onto the bench.

"This is Thea. Michonne and the others brought her back with them." Glenn spoke up, his eyes on the man with the baby.

The man gave her a polite smile and nodded. "It's nice to meet you, Thea, I'm Rick. These are my children Judith and Carl." He informed her in a tired voice.

He looked like he had been doing something with dirt all day, possibly working in the small garden she had seen when the group had arrived at the prison. He was handsome nonetheless, the grime somehow adding something extra to his appearance rather than taking away.

"Michonne said they found you in the pharmacy?" Rick's asked, which drew all eyes to her for confirmation.

Thea nodded once and glanced down at the bowl in front of her for a second before responding. "Supply run," she explained. "I usually avoid going into town if I can help it."

Glenn jumped in to ask where she had been camping out, his mouth still full of rice and meat as he spoke.

Thea paused for a moment as she thought about whether or not she should tell them. If the prison didn't work out she might want to circle back to her hideout and if they knew about it then it could come back to haunt her. Then again maybe it was just plain paranoia that had her sitting on the edge of her seat, literally.

"Um…I moved around a lot. I was holed up in a deer blind just outside of the town but it didn't really offer much shelter from the elements so I figured it was just about time to move on." She finally admitted, if she needed she would just have to find somewhere else to hunker down.

Hopefully she would be able to stay here for a while, but there was no way of knowing how these people would be. Sure they had children and elderly here, but it had been her experience that this new world changed people and the way they thought.

"Where are you from?" Carl asked suddenly, scrunching up his little nose at her in confusion; he had more than likely registered the remnants of her accent now that she had spoken more. He had good hearing…most people didn't notice it until after she mentioned home.

She looked at him with surprise before responding. "England. Ascot, Berkshire to be exact. We moved to the states when I was sixteen."

Carl seemed content with that answer and went back to stuffing his face with rice while the others made sounds of interest.

"That must have been quite the culture shock," Karen commented from her seat between Carl and Tyreese. She had finished her food and now gave her full attention to the newcomer.

Thea felt her palms grow sweaty at all the attention, she hadn't even had the chance to take a bite of her food yet with all the questions being thrown her way. Part of her wanted to be a little aggravated by that considering how long it had been since she'd had a proper meal, but she knew they would want to get as much information as they could out of her if they were going to let her live here; maybe this was Tyreese's plan all along when he had invited her down for dinner.

She nodded her head in agreement and rubbed her hands together under the table. "Yeah, it was weird. Kind of like being the new kid in school, except it's not just school but also a whole new country. I missed home, hated my parents a little for making me leave…" Trailing off she took a moment to remember her mother's smiling face the day she had set off to Georgia, and her father's tight hug; that was the last time she had seen them. The last time she would probably see them ever again for as long as she lived.

The group seemed to notice the change of mood and fell silent. After a moment Thea finally took a bite of her food. It was lukewarm by now but it still tasted better and filled her up more than anything had in a long while. She didn't care that she wasn't sure what the meat was, maybe deer or some sort of rodent, she only cared that she was going to fall asleep with a full stomach tonight. That feeling was something she had never expected to miss as terribly as she did.

* * *

Light filtered through the white sheet Karen had given her to hang in the doorway of her new cell. It woke Thea from a deep sleep, one that had been a long time coming. For a second she jerked into an upright position and whipped her head around to figure out where the hell she was, but then she remembered her run-in with the four survivors at the pharmacy and coming back to the prison and relaxed enough to flop back down onto the thin prison mattress.

She stared up at the bottom of the bunk above her where someone carved tally marks into the metal. Running a finger over a group of five she wondered if it had been an inmate pre-apocalypse or a survivor who had been marking the days.

Whoever it was had stopped marking after only sixty-two days and she wondered what happened to them, death being the most likely outcome.

Sighing softly, Thea rose from the bunk and stretched her arms high above her head. After her back had popped a couple of times she sat and slipped her shoes back on before she pulled the sheet back and stepped out into the open cell block.

She wasn't sure what time it was but Rick was standing down below with Judith on his hip, his free hand messing with something on the table by the wall. She paused for a moment to watch him and the almost normalcy of it all, like seeing a father with his daughter could take away from the fact that the outside world was literal hell.

A young blonde girl appeared from further down the row of cells and took Judith off his hands with a smile and then returned to whichever cell she had been in before and Thea took that as her cue to head for the stairs that lead down to the main floor.

Rick's eyes found her the second she set foot on the staircase and he eyed her for several seconds before turning and picking his watch of the table and slipping it back onto his wrist. "Morning." He said quietly as others were still sleeping.

"Morning." She replied with a small smile, crossing her arms over her chest. "What time is it?"

Carl came from a cell then, his eyes filled with sleep and a frown on his face. "Too early." He commented with a yawn that had his father chuckling.

"It's just after seven. Carl and I are just headed out to take care of the pigs and the garden." Rick informed her, patting the young boy on the shoulder.

Thea nodded her head. Her assumption that the dirt covering the man last night came from the garden had been correct. "Sounds like an important job," she said, eyes flickering to sleepy kid. "I could use some air…do you mind if I walk out with you guys?"

Carl looked to his father to see how he would respond, not seeming surprised when Rick stated he didn't mind at all, and then the three were headed out of the cell block.

When they reached the courtyard Rick spoke up. "What is it you did before all of this?"

She had wondered how long it would be before this question posed itself and when she had returned to her cell last night she had found herself trying to decide if she should tell them she was a surgeon or if she should lie and say she did a job less valuable in this world? Now that the question had been asked she found herself unable to lie.

"I was a doctor. I'd just finished up my internship, passed my boards with flying colors, and was about to start my surgical residency."

Rick seemed impressed, nodding his head. "That's impressive." He commented, though she could tell by his face he had more thoughts on the matter.

"If I had known the world was going to end, I wouldn't have gone through so much schooling." She joked, smiling a little as her eyes surveyed the area.

Carol was cooking up breakfast with a boy about Carl's age who wore thick black glasses, and down at the outer ring of fences there was a crowd of walkers forming. Their hands gripped at the chain links and so many of them had gathered in one spot that the fence swayed with their weight, the barbed wire spirals on top moved back and forth.

"We don't exactly have the luxury of many doctors these days." Rick told her earnestly, clearly seeing value in what she had thought of as a waste of her time.

Thea returned the smile he offered her and nodded, suddenly feeling like maybe now she had the chance of doing something with the life she had worked so hard for. When the world had ended she felt like the years of training and studying had been for nothing, like she had done all of it just to have it ripped away from her.

Now she might be able to get some sort of normalcy back, some form of reality. Of her life. And that was a good feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: That's the end of chapter two! Like I said, I wanted to get the introductions done and get a sense of where Thea stood at the prison. I do apologize if this chapter bored you. The next chapter will have a bit of a time jump as I don't want to spend too much time in the lull this chapter created. Also I know it may be a bit of a cliche to have a character from England and a doctor, but I am basing Thea off of a character I created for RP on Tumblr and I didn't want to change her story.
> 
> Thank you for reading and please comment to let me know what you think!


	3. Decatur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

In the weeks that had passed since she had joined the group at the prison, Thea had become very close friends with Karen. The two were like peas in a pod and if the former Woodbury resident couldn't be found by Tyreese's side then the next best place to check would be with the new doctor; Ty had started calling them 'The Gruesome Twosome' and it had quickly made its way around the prison.

Maybe it was the fact that Karen reminded Thea a bit of her sister that had drawn them together, or maybe they were just two women whose paths were destined to cross. Either way, it was obvious that theirs was a real friendship.

"I think Ty might be getting bored of me." Karen spoke suddenly, her eyes never leaving the tree line just outside the fences.

Thea glanced her way from the other end of the guard tower and rolled her eyes. "Don't be ridiculous." She deadpanned before she lifted the binoculars back to her face.

She scanned the forest for a moment before a small red glow caught her attention below in the courtyard. The binoculars panned downward until a lone figure entered her line of vision. A cigarette dangled between two fingers, a thin grey swirl of smoke curling towards the sky. Lips took a long drag and the lit end burned bright against the night air that seemed to work as some sort of movie backdrop for Daryl from this angle.

Thea couldn't help but wonder how a guy like him had ended up in this group. She knew he had been with the 'original' members since Atlanta at the beginning of this whole mess, but how exactly a rough guy like him wound up joining them was something she had found herself wondering often.

Karen huffed loudly and drew her attention back to the conversation that had begun. "Okay so maybe not  _bored_  of me, but he might be getting impatient."

One last glance at Daryl and then Thea made her way over to stand with her friend. The other woman was holding a rifle in her arms, her eyes scanning the prison yard and beyond the fences for any movement.

"Why do you think he's growing impatient with you?" Thea inquired.

Another sigh came and Karen shook her head. "I don't know, maybe he's not. Maybe I'm imagining things." She backtracked.

The doctor leaned against the railing and tipped her head to get a better view of her friend's face. "No, don't do that. If you think I'm letting you off that easy then you're dead wrong. Talk to me."

It took moment but finally the other woman gave in, sighing for the third time in two minutes and adjusting the rifle in her arms.

"I just think maybe he's getting tired of waiting…" she trailed off as if she expected Thea to know what she was talking about.

Thea had a few guesses but she wanted to hear it from Karen. "Tired of waiting for what exactly?" she pressed, a small smirk played at her lips.

She received a glare, but then her answer followed. "Sex. I told him I wanted to wait and I'm starting to wonder if that will be the death of this relationship. It is the end of the world after all…not exactly the right time for  _taking it slow_."

The British woman scoffed quietly and shook her head, using the movement as a chance to scan the tree line quickly before responding. "You honestly believe  _Tyreese_ is that kind of guy, Kar?" She asked. "That man is literally one of the good ones, I find it hard to imagine he would be willing to walk away from a relationship like yours just because he has to wait to get a little action."

Karen was silent for a long moment as she thought it over, a look of concentration pulling her mouth into a frown and her eyebrows drew together. If she noticed the stare from Thea, she didn't make any indication of it.

"You're right," She finally spoke with a tired smile. "That's probably the stupidest thing I've ever done, doubting him like that. He really is one of the good ones."

Thea grinned and reached over to squeeze Karen's shoulder in reassurance. "See, nothing to worry about." She winked. "You should be paying me."

The two laughed quietly, Thea slowly returning back to the other side of the tower to watch the opposite end of the prison.

Below in the courtyard she noticed that Daryl had gone back inside, but one of the men from the Decatur group, she thought his name was Hoyt, had made himself comfortable on the bleachers facing the old court.

The Decatur group hadn't been around long, only about ten days, and Thea remembered running into them clearly.

* * *

_"Hey Thea, wait up!" Glenn called out, jogging to catch up with the woman._

_She didn't stop walking, merely slowed and turned to look over her shoulder at him until he managed to reach her. "Hey, what's up?" She asked as they continued walking side-by-side._

_A group of younger kids came running passed in the middle of an intense game of tag and the Korean man stepped closer to the Brit in order to avoid being run over. Lizzie and Mica trailed after the others slowly and sent them awkward apologies as they came by._

_Shaking his head, Glenn finally spoke. "We're going on a run—Maggie, Daryl, and I—and we were wondering if you wanted to come with us?"_

_Thea sent him a surprised look. She hadn't left the prison since she had arrived, why were they asking her of all people?_

_"You want me to go on a run with you?" she wondered, slowing to a stop as they reached the entrance to C Block._

_Glenn nodded, awful sure of the idea if his face was any indication. "Yeah, we thought it would be a good idea, especially since we're running low on medical supplies…"_

_She smirked and crossed her arms over her chest, a teasing look on her face._

_"So you've got ulterior motives then? You don't just want me to come because we're friends, you need someone who knows what to look for."_

_The look on the younger man's face was almost laughable, but he quickly recovered as he realized she was joking._

_"Funny," he replied. "Look, Herschel can't exactly run on one leg and you're the only other person with the knowledge and experience. We've got a list of stuff to look out for but it looks like nonsense even to Maggie, and she has a little experience from working with her dad."_

_He was rambling, trying to convince her to go on a trip that she had already decided to go on, so she figured it would be better to put him out of his misery. Sure, she could let this go on for a bit to see just how far he could go, what he would say to persuade her, but it almost seemed too cruel._

_"Calm down, Glenn, I'll come with you guys."_

_He seemed caught off guard by her agreeing without any more fuss, blinking at her. "Really? I mean, just like that?" He asked._

_Thea raised her eyebrow at him. "Do you want me to protest a little more? Because I'm sure I can come up with a few more arguments to plead my case for staying."_

_"Just be ready in twenty, okay?" he sighed, shaking his head. He turned and walked back across the courtyard to where Maggie was loading up the back of the green Hyundai._

_Laughing quietly to herself, she spun around and made her way into C Block. She waved at Karen and Tyreese who were sitting at one of the tables together and then found her way to the cells and up the stairs to walk the long upper level to her corner room._

_Her backpack was mostly empty now and she dumped the remaining contents onto her bed and quickly replaced them with a bottle of water and her flashlight. She stuck the small travel size first aid kit Glenn had found for her on one of his many runs into the front pocket in case they stumbled across any problems while out there today, and then slipped her axe into the larger pocket the way she'd had it when the group had found her._

_Slinging the pack over her shoulder and then double checking that her knife was still securely strapped to her thigh, she checked her watch for the time and then made her way back down the row of cells and into the cell block were Ty and Karen were seated._

_"Where are you going?" Karen asked in surprise, her eyebrows pulling together in concern._

_Thea shrugged as if it were completely casual. "On a run. With Glenn, Maggie, and Daryl."_

_"A run?" her friend repeated. "You don't go on runs…"_

_Tyreese looked a little amused at the reaction his girlfriend was having, looking between the two women as they spoke._

_"It's not like this is going to become a habit, Kar, I'm just going so that I can help find the meds they need to restock." She explained calmly. "I'll be back before you know it."_

_It wasn't like she needed Karen's permission, but the two had grown close—almost like sisters—and so it was only natural for worry to rear its head when the other was putting themselves in a potentially dangerous situation._

_Karen sighed and then nodded her head, slipping her hand back into Tyreese's large one. "Alright, just be careful, okay? And keep an eye out for jelly beans!"_

_"Will do." Thea replied with a laugh, raising her hand in a wave and then heading out of the cell block._

_As she came into the courtyard, Daryl was coming back from D Block with a piece of folded up paper in his hand, most likely a list, and she fell into step beside him._

_"Here's the list o' meds Herschel made." He said before she could speak, pulling another paper from his pocket and holding it out to her._

_She took it and unfolded it to glance over it. Most of the medications listed were either antibiotics or pain relievers, there were a few that were daily meds for the older members of the group and then a couple of odd requests that had her frowning._

_"Where are we headed exactly?" She wondered, stuffing the list in her own pocket._

_Daryl shrugged his shoulder at her in response, chewing on his bottom lip as they made it to the Hyundai. His motorcycle was parking in front of it and he stopped for a moment to hand Maggie the list he still held through the window of the passenger's side._

_"There's a town 'bout a quarter mile from where we found ya," He replied to Thea finally. "Don't think it's been hit yet."_

_Thea nodded her head and slipped her pack off, tossing it into the backseat. When she glanced back to respond verbally Daryl had already walked away and was mounting his bike, so she quickly jumped into the Hyundai and shut the door._

_Glenn got into the driver's seat and then they were headed out._

* * *

The hatch in the interior portion of the guard tower creaked open and startled her. She turned to see who was coming up and almost rolled her eyes when she found it to be Tyreese.

He held a blanket under one arm and shut the hatch with the other before joining the two women outside. "Hey, Thea." He spoke quietly.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" She inquired, though she knew the answer.

Karen came around to his other side and grinned at him, as if she hadn't just been questioning their development, and Thea felt a pang of envy at the look of pure love in her eyes. She would kill for that feeling again.

"I figured I would come relieve you, you had a long day today." Tyreese told the doctor.

He was lying of course, she hadn't had a long day at all. In fact she had accidentally slept in this morning and missed breakfast, then she had basically had this world's version of a day off, and Ty knew fully well that she wasn't tired at all.

"Are you sure, I don't mind staying." She spoke the familiar line for what could have been the millionth time; Tyreese often relieved her of her watch duties about halfway through the night when she and Karen would be partnered up.

Tyreese smiled at her, recognizing that she wasn't protesting in any way at all. "I insist."

Thea sent Karen a sly look and then shrugged, handing the binoculars to the large man. "Well since you insist. You two have fun." She stated and then she was making her way down the stairwell in the guard tower.

When she reached the courtyard Hoyt was still there and though he had always given her the creeps she sent him a friendly smile and nod and moved towards C Block. It wasn't that late yet and she was nowhere near tired and the library sounded like a good idea. Maybe she could curl up with a good book and read for a little while.

* * *

_The Hyundai came to a stop on the side of the road. The town was called Tucker and they had parked behind the post office as it was one of the first buildings they saw coming into the city. The plan was to split into two groups and each would take a different side of the long main street that seemed to go on for miles._

_Maggie and Glenn took the left side and Daryl and Thea took the right; a couple of buildings down on the right side was the pharmacy and that made it obvious which side of the road Thea needed to be on._

_The first building on their side housed an old barber shop called "Hal's" and Daryl rapped two knuckles on the glass door to call any walkers inside forward._

_"My old man used to go to this shop in my hometown, the guy who ran the place kept a couple o' guns in the back." He explained to her as if he sensed that she was questioning whether or not it was worth it to go inside._

_Seconds later an old man, still wearing his white apron, slammed against the door. His face was grey with death and he snapped his teeth at them through the glass. It didn't look like he had been in contact with any other walkers, so Thea could only assume he had died after locking up the shop hoping to wait it out._

_Axe gripped tightly in hand, the nodded as Daryl gripped the door handle and waited a moment before he pulled hard to open the door. It didn't budge, of course, why would it? It was obvious that the owner had locked himself inside._

_"Wait here, I'll go 'roud and see if there's a back door." Daryl told her before turning and heading for the alley with his crossbow at the ready._

_Thea's eyes found the old man walker, Hal, and she wondered just how he had died. He didn't look too thin so that ruled out starvation, and she didn't see anything to indicate he had taken his own life. Perhaps old age had caught up to him while he was hunkered down, a heart attack or a stroke could have done him in._

_It was a sad way to go, all alone and hiding for survival. It made her glad that she wasn't alone now, that she had a group to help when times grew tough._

_An arrow burst through Hal's forehead startling Thea enough to make her flinch. The now one hundred percent dead barber slumped to the floor to reveal Daryl, who moved forward to pull his bolt from the man's head and then pull his body aside so that he could open the door for her._

_When the world had gone to hell, in the beginning, she had felt bad about killing walkers. She saw them as infected, the doctor in her wanted to find a cure and save people but she quickly came to the realization that these people weren't sick they were dead and even if she found a way to stop the turn, she would never be able to reverse the dead ones back to living. After that she learned to push aside the guilt that had come with putting down one of the walking dead._

_The living were harder to kill, she didn't think she would ever get over doing that. She didn't want to._

_They quickly checked the barber shop and all it did was prove Daryl right; the owner had a sawed off shotgun in the back office space but that was all there was worth grabbing. On the way out, however, Thea picked up a straight razor from one of the counters in front of the barber's chair and slipped it into her back pocket just in case it could come in handy later._

_The next few shops proved to be a bust and she felt her confidence in this run dwindling as they finally approached the pharmacy. The well was about to run dry when they found the door unlocked and the shelves inside picked nearly clean, what little remained was scattered across the floor._

_Daryl walked in front of her with her crossbow at the ready as he swept the front portion of the store. Once he had deemed it clear, he stooped down to pick up a box of over the counter ointment to inspect and Thea moved passed him with her axe gripped tight as she rounded the pharmacist's counter._

_The shelves looked pretty sparse and she moved slowly down the first aisle. Her left hand separated the pill bottles and she eyed each label carefully, setting aside anything that wasn't needed or helpful in future scenarios. Her hand froze on a large pink bottle of prenatal vitamins and she stared at it for a second uncertainly before she glanced to make sure Daryl wasn't anywhere in sight._

_She shoved them into one of the smaller pockets of her pack, just in case Karen or any of the other women needed them down the road now that people were feeling comfortable and settling in at the prison. Pregnancy had to happen eventually in a world where contraceptives were hard to find._

_Zipping the pocket she spun around the end of the shelf and into the next aisle to continue her search. This shelf happened to have quite a few bottles left and she quietly turned them to see the labels, her axe hanging by her side in her right hand._

_As she grabbed for a bottle of amoxicillin she felt the cool metal barrel of a pistol press against the back of her head and the breath left her in the same second. Shit._

* * *

Thea entered C Block as quietly as she could, it was already late enough that people would be sleeping even though she wasn't tired herself, and was surprised to find Rick and Daryl sitting at a table in quiet conversation. Judith sat on her father's lap and he was attempting to give her a bottle, but she seemed to be fixated on the idea of moving to the other man's lap instead.

As Thea opened up the gated door leading into the small common area, Daryl took the baby off the former sheriff's hands and cradled her. He accepted the bottle from Rick and the child immediately drank away as if she had been starving this whole time, to which both men chuckled before the creaking of the gate turned their attention to her.

She sent them a small smile and a wave as Rick nodded and Daryl turned his focus back to Judith.

"Tyreese, again?" Rick asked simply, knowing that it was not uncommon for the man to take Thea's watch if she was partnered with his lady love.

The doctor nodded her head with a grin. "I'll just take his morning watch," she shrugged, though she didn't much care for the idea of getting up for the shift which started just a few hours after daybreak.

Rick shook his head, waving her off. "You've had a long night. I'll go up there after I feed the hogs in the morning."

Thea's eyebrows rose in surprise. Rick wasn't exactly unwelcoming to her, but he had never gone out of his way to make things easy for her. He treated her like any other person they had taken in, so why was he offering to take Ty's morning shift off her hands?

"Are you sure? I don't mind, really."

Judith fussed and kicked her foot into the crook of Daryl's elbow as his hand loosened on the bottle and the nipple slipped from her mouth. His eyes were squinting at her and Rick as he listened, but he quickly scoffed and replaced the nipple in the baby's impatiently gaping mouth.

Rick smiled at the attitude his daughter was displaying and locked eyes with Thea again. "Yeah, don't worry about it."

She wasn't about to argue with him further and she definitely wasn't going to deny herself a few extra hours rest even if she had overslept this morning. So instead she lifted her hands in surrender with a small laugh.

"Okay, thanks, no need to pull my arm," She joked. "In that case, I think I'll head to the library for a bit and find something to read. You boys have a good night, don't let Judith stay up too late."

With one last smile she turned and grabbed an extra flashlight from one of the other tables and headed for the tombs.

* * *

_"Drop the axe slowly." A gravelly voice said from behind her as the gun pressed harder into the back of her head._

_Thea's heart was pounding and she felt her chest rise and fall quickly as her breath came back to her in frightened pants. Her wide eyes stared at the bottle of amoxicillin in her hand and she wondered if she might be able to swing around and bury her axe into his gut before he could get a shot off. That thought quickly sickened her._

_"I won't tell you again," The man said in an odd accent, most likely from somewhere northeast of here. "I can pull the trigger faster than you can move, so let's not do anything cute."_

_Where was Daryl? Had someone taken him out already? Was she next?_

_She swallowed hard and let the wooden handle slip down out of her hand until the axe clattered to the floor and she heard the stranger kick it away from her, her hope of survival skidding across the tile with it._

_"Now the pills."_

_She set the bottle back on the shelf and kept her hand up for him to see as her right hand twitched towards the knife on her thigh; she hoped he didn't see it strapped there._

_Before she could even touch the loop keeping the knife in its sheath she felt the man step closer to her, his breath tickled the back of her neck and she silently wished she had left her hair down rather than braiding it earlier._

_A large hand brushed her hip and she flinched, her mouth parted in a quiet gasp, and she felt herself begin to shake in fear. She hated that someone could have that much power over her and wanted nothing more than to throw her elbow back into his face, but that would surely cause him to fire his gun in surprise and if he didn't end up shooting her he would still ring the dinner bell for any walkers in the area. His hand slid down her leg to the knife and quickly he unsnapped it from the sheath and yanked it free, and then he stepped away from her._

_The distance only calmed her slightly._

_"Drop the gun, asshole," Daryl's voice suddenly came from further behind her and she breathed a sigh of relief at the sound. Never had she been more relieved to hear that man's voice._

_After a moment the weight of the pistol on the back of her head was gone and she glanced over her shoulder first before turning fully to see the face of the stranger who had managed to terrorize her a matter of seconds._

_He had dark hair speckled with grey and small, beady brown eyes. He stood only about two inches taller than her, and since she was 5'5" that meant he was unusually short for a man. He was slowly lowering his gun to the floor and she reached forward quickly to snatch her knife back, returning it to its rightful position._

_Daryl met her eyes over the asshole's head and she did her best to hide that she had been afraid for her life moments before, but he could probably tell she was a bit shaken up._

_"You alright?" He asked, his crossbow still aimed at the stranger's head._

_She nodded once and took a deep breath. "Yeah, I'm fine." She stated, though how true that was she wasn't sure. She definitely didn't like being outside the prison fences but she also didn't like how only two months had managed to reduce her to that much weakness._

_She side stepped past the stranger and crouched to pick up her axe where it had ended up against the wall before gripping it with both hands and glaring daggers at the man's back._

_"Who the hell are you?" Daryl asked him, cautiously stepping around to view the man's face._

_Her attacker held up his hands and glanced between the two of them. "Look, I don't want any trouble. I just needed those antibiotics for my friend." He informed them, avoiding the question._

_Thea inched closer. "Was the part where you groped me necessary?" She demanded, those words causing Daryl to lift his crossbow higher and glare harder than should be possible._

_"I was taking your knife, I wasn't trying to feel you up." The stranger was quick to defend himself before the archer could shoot an arrow in his eye._

_Thea thought for a moment, staring at his beady eyes and trying to determine whether or not this man was lying to her. The fear that Daryl's crossbow had instilled in his face seemed genuine and she thought back to what he had said earlier about needing the antibiotics._

_Grabbing the amoxicillin from the shelf she held it in front of his face. "Why do you need this? Your friend sick or something?"_

_The man nodded hesitantly. "Y-Yes," He stammered. "He cut his leg pretty bad on some fence and it doesn't look too good. Figured I might as well get some antibiotics."_

_"How did you know what to look for? There's 'bout a million bottles in here." Daryl grunted, clearly not believing a word he was hearing._

_Thea didn't blame him._

_"My kids used to take amoxicillin when they got sick, I remembered the doctors saying it was an antibiotic." The stranger's face fell as he spoke about his children, a look of remorse and guilt replacing his fear. "They're dead now." He added even though it wasn't necessary._

_After a long moment of thought Daryl lowered his crossbow, and glanced Thea's way before speaking again. "What's yer name?"_

_The man visibly relaxed now that there was no longer a weapon pointed at his face and he swallowed. "David."_

* * *

She had walked the tombs several times before, both in day and night, but they still never failed to creep her out. Part of it was because of the gaping hole on the other side of the prison that walkers would sometimes wander into the prison through. The group had blocked it as best they could, but every so often one or two of the dead managed to squeeze through and wander the tombs looking for a meal.

Thankfully the library wasn't too far down and she stepped into the room, shining her flashlight around to see if anyone else was there. She was alone, and she found that she preferred that to finding another survivor reading; she liked the quiet.

She walked into the far corner of the room where she had seen medical textbooks on her previous visit and pulled a large volume from the chin high shelf. It was gross anatomy and she smiled to herself as she remembered a time when she was up late at the library on campus cramming for classes and downing coffee like it was a lifesaving drug.

The moonlight came through the windows enough for her to see the book without her flashlight and so she turned it off and set it on the top of the shelf. As she opened the book he heard a low creak from the doorway and froze, her eyes snapping up to scan the library for anyone or anything that had followed her in, but there was nothing.

Setting the book next to her flashlight, she pulled her knife and rounded the shelf to head towards the front end of the small library.

She didn't see anything as she moved slowly through the shelves with her knife poised at the ready. But she had been certain she'd heard the door creak and it couldn't have been in her head, could it?

Just as she was about to laugh it off and chastise herself for being so jumpy, something slammed into her back  _hard._


	4. Devil Within

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N:   
> IMPORTANT: This chapter is rated M and contains a trigger warning, I will have "TW: Skip if you do not wish to read" before the part that contains it so you can skip ahead, and "Continue reading here" so you know when it's over. I didn't go into many details in that scene because it wasn't necessary, but it is obvious what is happening so I just wanted to give you the option of skipping over it.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

" _We're holed up in the apartment above this store here," David informed as he lead Thea and Daryl towards what looked to be an abandoned liquor store._

_After explaining more about his group, four guys who had met up in Decatur and stuck together, Daryl had relieved David of his weapons and told him if he tried anything funny he wouldn't hesitate to put a bolt between his eyes and then ordered him to lead the way._

_Thea fell into step close to Daryl and glanced at the man in front of them. "Are you sure we shouldn't go get Maggie and Glenn? We're outnumbered here."_

_He shook his head once. "If shit goes down at least they can get back to the prison. Ain't no reason we all gotta die." He explained._

_Though the notion that they could end up dying in some kind of trap worried her, she knew that Daryl was right; there was no point in getting them all killed. Thea couldn't help but be a little impressed by Daryl's thinking, it was almost like he had been in similar situations before, and she wondered what exactly he did prior to the end of the world._

_David stopped at the front entrance of the liquor store and rapped three times on the glass. It was boarded up from the inside and a few seconds later one of the boards across the door was pulled away. A young male face came into view and he visibly relaxed upon seeing the face of his group member. A second later, however, he saw the two newcomers and frowned before disappearing._

_Thea glanced uneasily towards Daryl and gripped David's gun tightly in her hands, preparing herself for the possibility of having to shoot someone._

_The door wretched open suddenly and there were two guns trained on them, one held by the younger man and the other held by a man with wild brown hair and unusually large blue eyes. He looked to be in his late thirties and gave Thea an odd feeling that had the hairs on her arms standing up._

_Daryl's crossbow came up immediately and it took Thea a second longer to raise the gun._

" _The hell are you?" He demanded in a thick southern accent, his voice sounding like he had been smoking two packs a day since he was able to hold a cigarette._

_David was quick to step between the two groups and throw his hands up. "Calm down, Hoyt!" he exclaimed. "She's a doctor!"_

Hoyt  _moved his gaze to Thea and studied her face for a moment before his eyes raked her body in a not too subtle manner. He didn't look like he trusted her, but he sure looked like he was enjoying what he saw and it made her skin crawl._

" _Who's the dick?" He asked finally._

" _Best watch your mouth," Daryl growled._

_Thea decided to speak up before things could escalate. "He's a friend. You want my help, he comes with me. We're a package deal."_

_Hoyt stared at her for a long moment. "What makes you think we want your help?" he sneered._

_This guy was wasting time. If their friend was really hurt then it wasn't like they could stand around chatting about it all day. She needed to get in there and take a look at his leg._

" _From what I hear, you've got a guy in there with a nasty cut." She began. "The way I see it you've got two options: let us come in and I can take care of him, or we walk and you get the pleasure of putting down your pal when he dies and comes back as a flesh eater."_

_No one moved for several long seconds and she shrugged, lowering the gun. "Okay, c'mon Daryl, clearly they don't need us." She said, turning to make like she was going to leave though she had no intentions on doing that._

_She heard Daryl's feet shuffling behind her and they made it to the curb before Hoyt called out to them._

" _Alright, fine! But I'm watching you and your little guard dog."_

_Thea turned back to the store front, sending Hoyt a sardonic smirk. She knew he would stop them, most people weren't foolish enough to let a friend die because they were paranoid and even someone like Hoyt would give in if threatened with the death of a friend, even if it had never been her intention to actually leave._

_It was about an hour later, after cleaning up a cut that had been about a day away from the point where amputation would have been the only option and stuffing antibiotics down the man's throat, his name was Ted and he was a lot nicer than Hoyt had been despite the incredible amount of pain he was in, that Thea found herself standing with Daryl in a far corner of the apartment above the run down liquor store._

" _Do we bring them back to the prison?" She asked. Her arms were folded across her chest and she glanced towards the group of men before her eyes flickered back up to Daryl's._

_Daryl was a very observant person and she found that she trusted his judgement more than she would have expected. He had been silent throughout the hour that it had taken her to clean, stitch, and redress the wound and medicate Ted, but she soon realized it was just because he was studying them all closely._

" _You think we should?" He wondered. His eyes were locked on hers and she noticed for the first time that they were actually blue rather than the dark brown she had thought when they'd met._

_Nodding her head, she answered honestly. "Hoyt gives me the creeps but the others seem nice enough. And that cut needs to be monitored, I don't feel comfortable leaving someone in Ted's condition out here."_

_The archer squinted at her for a long moment, so long that she began to grow self-conscious, but then he nodded his head and pulled his crossbow off his shoulder. He didn't say anything further to her, simply turned and rejoined the group of men._

_As Thea followed she heard Daryl ask the first of three questions she had been asked not too long ago._

_By the end of that day Thea would find herself on the back of Daryl's motorcycle headed back to the prison, the new members of their little community stuffed in the back of the green Hyundai following close behind them._

* * *

Something slammed into her back hard and she was thrown forward before she even had a chance to react. She opened her mouth to scream but a second after she drew the gulp of air that would carry her shout cloth was shoved into her mouth roughly. It tasted like sweat and she tried her best not to gag as she threw her arm back hard.

Her elbow connected with something hard and she heard a grunt of pain, but the weight on top of her lessoned for a moment and she dug her nails into the carpet to pull herself forward. A glance backwards revealed her attacker to be Hoyt from the Decatur group.

Her arms protested and she reached over to grasp the bottom of one of the shelves to help more, but she only managed to get a few feet before a hand wrapped around the back of her neck. She let out a shriek, muffled by the cloth in her mouth, and tried to swing her arm back again but he was expecting it this time.

His other hand wound itself into the back of her shirt and he used it to drag her back to him.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, her jaw ached from her mouth being forced into the wide open position by the large amount of whatever was in her mouth, and she could tell the skin on her left elbow had been burned by skidding across the carpet.

"Help me out here!" Hoyt whispered harshly and for a second she thought he was talking to her.

Until the young boy from his group rounded the shelf in front of her.

His name was Josh and he had never been anything other than polite and sweet to her, this kid having a part in whatever this was shocked her to her core.

He moved forward and his boot came quickly towards her face, connecting hard with her temple and sending stars across her line of vision.

"Not the face, idiot!" Hoyt warned him.

Thea had grown slack for several seconds as she tried to regain control over the spinning room and Josh used that time to kneel before her and grasp her upper arms in his hands, holding them out in front of her in a vice-like grip that had her wincing.

Behind her the other man snickered in amusement at the position she was in, lying on her stomach on the library floor with her arms held down. For a second Thea wondered what the hell they planned to do with her now.

And then it hit her about the same time Hoyt's work boot slammed against her ribcage.

Thea called out in pain, biting down hard on the gag and squeezing her eyes shut as she felt one of her ribs crack from the blow.

**TW: Rape. Skip ahead if you do not wish to read.**

"Shut up, bitch!" Hoyt commanded, stooping to grab her by the braid and wretch her head back to look her in the eyes. "You asked for this. I saw the little look you gave me on your way into the cell block earlier."

Her mind was still reeling from the kick to her temple but she distinctly remembered nothing inviting about the  _polite_ smile she had offered him in the courtyard earlier. The fact that he had misinterpreted that made her angry, and reminded her of all the stories she heard from young women that would come into the emergency room reporting that they had been sexually assaulted; nine times out of ten they stated that their attackers had been someone who they had been friendly to but never given the impression that they were romantically interested in.

Hoyt released her hair and her head fell back onto the carpet, her chin connecting with a thump as he moved to stand behind her once again.

As soon as she felt his hands lift her shirt slightly she began clawing at Josh's legs and arms to release his hold on her. Tears were streaming down her face and she hadn't even realized until the younger of the two sighed at her attempts and his breath felt cold on her wet cheeks.

Josh simply trapped her hands under his knees, his full weight on her fingers causing her to whimper.

Rough hands gripped the waistband of her jeans and she felt her eyes widen as her pants and underwear were tugged down in one violent motion.

Hoyt snickered, Josh had the decency to look away in shame, and then she heard the jingle of the older man's belt.

_Oh god._

* * *

**Continue reading here:**

When the sun came streaming through the windows of the library and landed on her face she groaned and lifted her hand to cover her eyes. Her upper arm protested at the movement and she spotted the purple hand-shaped bruise that had formed around her bicep. Her other arm looked the same.

It came back to her then, what had happened hours ago in this very library.

She remembered the sweaty taste of the handkerchief that was now in a crumpled heap next to a small pile of vomit several feet away from her.

She remembered Hoyt laughing at her as she cried, remembered Josh actually refusing when Hoyt had told him it was 'his turn', and remembered the second kick to the ribs that came before the two men had left the room.

When she had mustered up the strength she had pulled up her pants and yanked the handkerchief from her mouth, proceeded to vomit, and then crawled into the corner she had fallen asleep in as tears streamed down her face.

Now in the cold light of day her body ached, her ribs protested as she drew in air and her head was throbbing; she wasn't sure if it was more from the kick Josh had given her or from the crying.

She was angry and she was having a hard time deciding if she was angrier with the men or with herself. She came to the conclusion that she was pissed at herself for not just going to bed, for not fighting more, for even smiling at Hoyt in the courtyard. For bringing the men back to the prison. It was on her.

After a moment, Thea managed to pull herself shakily to her feet and somehow got to the showers without passing anyone in the halls even though it was morning and more than a few people would often get up early to wash and start the day.

She needed to wash away the memory of the previous night, needed to scrub her skin until it was raw, but when she undressed and closed the make-shift curtain in the far corner 'stall' she only managed to stay upright in the spray of the cold water for a minute before she collapsed to the hard floor, a flood of tears mixing with the water raining down on her.

* * *

Thea wasn't sure how long she sat there before she heard someone call her name softly, in a concerned voice.

The water had long since stopped running from the showerhead and she now sat cold and naked on the floor, her hair partly dry and sticking to her back and face. Karen stood in front of her, confusion on her pretty face as she took in her friend's state.

"Thea, what happened? Are you okay?" She demanded, eyes falling on the bruises on her arms and ribcage. The latter had blossomed across her side and down her torso in a large, dark mark that sent fear racing through Karen's mind.

The darker haired woman came forward with her hands reaching towards her and Thea shrunk away instinctively, wincing just slightly as the movement shot pain up her side. Karen froze, her eyes widening for a second.

"Sweetie, what happened?" She asked again, crouching down in front of her and studying the bruises closely. Her eyes lingered on the hand prints that circled the doctor's biceps. "Jesus Christ."

Moving to stand, she grabbed the curtain to pull it open again. "I'm going to get Maggie."

"No, please, no!"

Karen seemed surprised by her outburst and then sighed. "Thea you have to tell them. The Council. They have to punish whoever did this."

"I can't. P-Please, don't say anything." She whimpered.

Her friend looked heartbroken by the expression on her face and the way her voice had cracked, but she nodded slowly and then disappeared outside the curtain. When she returned she held a fresh change of clothes, probably what she had intended on changing into after showering, and she didn't speak another word as she helped Thea dress.

The two made their way slowly from the showers and down the dimly lit hallways that led to C Block. Thea's hair was dry now and Karen had tried to brush it out of her face as much as she could, but when she had caught sight of the bruise on her temple she pulled the hair back down to cover it.

When they entered C Block, Thea stiffened when she saw that Herschel, Glenn, Maggie, and Daryl were standing by the stairs that led to the upper level of cells. The stairs Thea needed to go up to get to her cell.

Herschel was the first to catch sight of the two of them and he straightened up, concern flashing across his features when he saw the state Thea was in.

Karen had an arm around her shoulders, the other hand holding her forearm gingerly, to keep her steady as they walked. Thea probably looked affright, her eyes red-rimmed from crying and her face pale. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her middle to keep her cracked ribs from shifting too much as she moved; she would need to wrap them as soon as she got into her cell.

"Is she okay?" the old man asked, drawing the attention of the others.

Thea's eyes travelled their faces; Maggie and Glenn looked just as concerned as Herschel, but Daryl's expression was hard to read, she couldn't tell what he was thinking.

"She's just not feeling too well," Karen lied smoothly with a small smile for extra measure. "I'm taking her to lie down in her bunk."

Three of the group seemed to believe her, Herschel asking if they needed him to come up and check her out, but Daryl fixed Thea with a scrutinizing gaze, his eyes squinting further in disbelief. She was instantly glad that the shirt Karen had given her had long sleeves or else she was sure he would see the bruises on her arms.

"No," Thea croaked out. "I'll be okay, I just need to sleep for a bit."

The old man nodded. "Let me know if you need anything, alright?" His voice was gentle and kind. It made Thea want to cry again.

"Thank you."

Karen helped her up the stairs and moments later she was sitting on the bunk in her cell as her friend pulled the sheet across the door to conceal them from prying eyes. She grabbed the ace bandage from the small table by the wall.

"Let's get your ribs wrapped and then I'll find something in your stash for the pain, okay?"

Thea wasn't sure what she would do without a friend like Karen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know what you're thinking: "Why the hell would she have something like that happen in the FOURTH CHAPTER?" And the reason is that I wanted this to be something that is a part of Thea's story instead of something that happened in the past or will happen later on and be glossed over when the Governor returns and runs them out of the prison. I want this story to be about Thea's journey from victim to survivor, much like Carol's journey from battered housewife to badass warrior.
> 
> I understand if this chapter makes you stop reading the story, but I do encourage you to read further and join me on Thea's journey. Also remember that TWD is a dark show and this story will not be any different.


	5. Five Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

Four days.

That's how long it had been since the attack in the library.

Four whole days of hiding out in her cell as much as she could and trying to convince the other survivors that she was simply 'under the weather'.

96 hours of blaming herself for what Hoyt and Josh did, of trying to figure out just what she did wrong.

5,760 minutes. 345,600 seconds.

And the entire time she knew deep down that it was ridiculous, that Hoyt and Josh were the real ones to blame, but she was stuck in a rut of pity and guilt. The same rut she saw so many girls in when they traveled through her ER.

She couldn't believe they blamed themselves then, so why was she so quick to blame herself now?

Maybe now she could understand what they were truly thinking…she wished she could have reached that point of clarity in another way.

* * *

On the fifth day she stood from her bunk and stopped to stare into the tiny metal mirror that was mounted to the wall. She studied her reflection, her light brown hair had grown long since the end of the world and she pushed it back off her face to view the L-shaped bruise that marred the pale skin of her temple.

It was beginning to transition from a bluish-purple color to a sickly green and she sighed heavily, eyes lowering to her upper arms.

Where Josh's hands hadn't held as tightly the bruises were close to fading, but the underside of her arms were tender and greenish-yellow fingers were still visible.

Her ribs were an entirely different story. Karen helped her wrap them every day but Thea knew enough to know that it would take around six weeks for the one she had cracked to heal completely. That was forty-two days of pain ahead of her, and she didn't have the kind of medication needed to make getting through the next thirty-seven days easy.

She sighed again and moved to pull her hair up, gritting her teeth as raising her arms aggravated her ribs further. And then she groaned again when she remembered that she  _couldn't_ put her hair in a bun or a ponytail if she wanted to keep the bruise on her temple covered.

She sure as hell wasn't going to be braiding it again any time soon.

Damn it.

A growl of frustration came from her throat and she snatched up the scissors from the table and began to snip at her long hair. The hair that Hoyt had grabbed ahold of and used against her. Hair she had preferred long in the old world, but now was beginning to see the impracticality of it.

When her angry cutting was finished she dropped the scissors onto the table with a loud clatter and studied her reflection again; this time the face looking back at her was framed by hair that just barely brushed her collarbones in choppy layers. She was no hairdresser, but then again she wasn't exactly trying to impress anyone.

"Thea?"

She jumped, startled by the voice that called her name from the other side of the pink sheet that hung in the doorway, and turned to quickly grab a shirt from the top bunk that had long enough sleeves to cover her upper arms.

"You awake?" Beth asked just as the shirt was pulled over her head.

Pulling the sheet back quickly, she faced the young blonde girl with a forced smile, ignoring the surprised look she received at her new hairstyle.

Crossing her arms so she could hold her ribs discretely, she raised her eyebrows. "Yeah, what's up, Beth?" she wondered. It wasn't like the youngest member of the Greene family talked to her, ever.

"Maggie wanted me to ask if you could meet her in her cell."

Thea frowned, but she nodded her agreement. What did Maggie want with her? Had she figured out what had happened in the library or was this a medical visit?

Maggie and Glenn's cell was on the main floor and she descended the metal stairs slowly, one arm still wrapped around her torso as she held onto the railing. She could see the older Greene daughter standing in the small room chewing on her thumb nail nervously.

"Hey, what's going on?" Thea asked as she came to rest in the doorway, her heart beat in her chest so hard she was sure it would burst right through her sternum and fall to the floor in between the two of them.

Maggie cut her eyes sideways to make sure no one was within earshot and then answered in a whisper for extra measure. "I think I might be pregnant."

Okay that was not what she had expected. Definitely was not one of the scenarios that had run through her mind when Beth had told her that Maggie wanted to meet. Was it wrong to feel some assuagement that instead of figuring out what had happened, the farmer's daughter simply thought she had a bun in the oven?

Probably.

She tried her best to hide her relief. "Oh. Okay, um, is that something you and Glenn want or…?" She responded.

There was a defeated look on the other woman's face.

"Glenn's scared. He thinks it's a death warrant after what happened to Lori."

Rick's wife. She had died in childbirth and Maggie had been the one to cut Judith from her belly. Thea only found out when she had asked Glenn where Carl's mother was; she had assumed dead but hoped it had been a less gruesome event. Then again there was no easy way out of this new world.

"Do you?" she spoke softly, suddenly feeling sick to her stomach at the thought of her friend going through something similar.

The farmer's daughter shook her head though, her shoulders lifting in a shrug. "It doesn't have to be. We have something good here, we can put down roots and rebuild our lives."

Thea admired her view. Five days ago she might have agreed.

Maggie was biting her thumbnail again. "Maybe we should go somewhere private. Maybe the library."

She might have literally felt her heart stop for a moment.

"No!" She exclaimed a little too quickly, a little too loudly. The look she received would have been comical in any other situation and she tried to backtrack. "I-I mean Carol will be there. Doesn't Story Time start soon?"

The other woman seemed to believe her and sighed, nodding. "You're right. Just…pull the sheet and we can talk quietly."

Thea did as she was told and then the two of them were sitting on the bed Glenn and Maggie had made by taking apart their bunks and pushing them together. Mrs. Rhee had a look in her eyes that told the doctor that she believed Thea had all the answers and given her current situation it scared the hell out of her.

"Okay, so the first thing I would recommend is getting a home pregnancy test to take-"

"-Glenn's on a run with Daryl now. I told him to keep an eye out-"

"-Okay, great. And when was your last menstrual cycle?"

Maggie was silent for a few seconds as she counted on her fingers. "Maybe thirty-three…thirty-four days ago?"

She got up and checked the calendar that hung on the wall and corrected herself. "Thirty-two days ago."

Thea nodded her head and gave the other woman a reassuring smile. "That might not mean anything. A normal cycle is about twenty-eight days and it's not uncommon to be late when you're under stress. Can't get more stressful than our current living situation, right?"

That seemed to calm the younger woman down enough and she sat back on the bed with a slightly sheepish look. Thea wished the days were as simple as worrying about an accidental pregnancy. Things would never be that simple again.

"You're right, I'm sorry. Maybe I'm just being crazy."

"Don't worry about it, really. It's okay to get a little crazy sometimes."

Maggie smiled.

"Is it wrong to think we can have lives here?" she asked.

That feeling of dread returned to her as she recalled that even she had thought that perhaps things would work out in the prison. She had every reason to believe that things would be okay here; until five days ago.

She didn't want to kill that hope she saw in Maggie's eyes. Refused to let that be someone else's dilemma.

"I don't think that's wrong, Maggie." She lied, looking down at her hands in her lap. "I think maybe some people can have something great here."

The farmer's daughter frowned, tipping her head to look at her friend's face. "Are you okay, Thea?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine." She lied again, turning her eyes upward to try to stop the forming tears from actually escaping, her face turning slightly away from Maggie's questioning gaze. A mistake she shouldn't have made.

"What's that?" Maggie asked, eyes fastened on the L-shaped bruise that had been revealed as the other woman's hair had moved.

She reached forward to brush the hair back in order to get a better look and Thea wasn't able to cover her flinch fast enough.

Maggie froze.

"Someone did this to you?" She asked, her voice suddenly darker.

Thea stood quickly and tugged her hair back over the mark. "It's nothing." She whispered hastily, her voice thick with the tears she hadn't shed yet.

The younger brunette stood and blocked her path to the door, a soft but determined expression on her face.

"Thea, please," She spoke gently. "Tell me."

They locked eyes in challenge, Maggie's demanded answers while Thea's begged the taller woman to let her go.

"There's nothing to tell." Thea finally whispered, eyes wide and brimming.

Before Maggie could respond, Beth pulled the sheet back with the arm that wasn't holding Judith on her hip.

"Maggie, Glenn's back." She informed them, eyeing the position they were in before disappearing from sight.

Thea blinked, tears finally falling silently down her cheeks, and Maggie sighed with defeat.

"This conversation isn't over." She told her before leaving the cell.

She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding in and wiped at her cheeks furiously. The feeling of relief that washed over her was coated with shame.

Turning to the mirror on the wall she took a moment to collect herself before following after the southerner out to the courtyard.

There were a few people milling about while others helped unload what supplies the scavengers had found from the back of the silver truck. Thea kept her arms around her ribs and moved slowly towards the returning group to see if they had found anything medically useful.

Glenn and Daryl hadn't returned alone, however, and she slowed her pace as she eyed the stranger who stood beside the Korean man.

He didn't look particularly unfriendly, but then again neither had Josh, and she felt herself tensing up at the thought of yet another person to worry about in the prison.

While he didn't look unfriendly he certainly had a look in his eyes that told her he had seen quite a bit in his lifetime. The hair on his head looked like it was in the middle of growing back in after being shaved and his mouth was surrounded by facial hair and patches had started to grow on his jaw.

"This is Bob," Glenn introduced to the small group that had formed to greet the newcomer.

"Bob Stookey," the man added with a friendly smile. "It's nice to meet you all."

Thea decided then that she wasn't sure what to think of this man. His voice was friendly but his eyes never quite lost that haunted glow. She didn't bother moving to introduce herself, choosing to stay back from the crowd instead.

She eyed the things being taken from the bed of the truck silently until she caught sight of Hoyt pulling a box out. Freezing, she watched him with wide eyes. It was the first time she had seen him since that night and she could feel her palms begin to sweat, her chest heaved with every breath.

He turned and caught her eyeing him and a slow smirk spread across his thin lips.

Her skin crawled.

A voice calling her name broke her from the staring contest that had begun between her and her attacker and she jumped what could have been three feet in the air at the sound before she whipped her head around.

Rick stood on her right, eyebrow raised at her reaction. "You alright?" He wondered, an amused look on his face.

"Yeah, you just startled me." Thea played it off with a laugh and faced him completely, her hand over her heart for dramatic effect.

He apologized with a smile. "Glad to see you up on your feet."

"Thanks."

"You look better, but if you're still not feeling up for it I was going to say that I could take your watch with Karen tonight."

She appreciated the sentiment, but she needed to be around someone that understood right now.

"That won't be necessary," She assured him. "I'll be fine."

The sheriff studied her for a second before nodding his head and giving a small shrug. "Let me know if you change your mind."

"Will do."

She thought for a moment he was going to ask her if she was okay again based on the way he was watching her, but finally he stepped backwards towards the cell block.

"I like your new look," He commented, finger motioning towards her hair before he turned and entered C Block.

She watched him go until he had disappeared out of sight, and then she turned back to see if the eyes she felt on the back of her neck were still Hoyt's.

She was surprised to find the observer was the owner of a crossbow.

* * *

That night she was more than glad to slowly climb the stairs of the guard tower with binoculars in hand and Karen waiting at the top. Hiding in her cell had been to avoid others seeing her in the state she was in, but it had also ended up being a great way to draw attention and she had quickly realized that she needed to try to get back into old routines in order to keep anyone from asking questions.

She, rather painfully, climbed up the ladder that led to the hatch-like door of the inner tower and pushed up to lift the hatch. She closed it quietly behind her once she was standing inside the tower and then looped the strap of the binoculars over her shoulder as she joined Karen outside.

"Hey, how are you feeling?" the woman asked her gently, her grip on the rifle loosening.

Thea shrugged her shoulders and rested against the railing. Her eyes roamed over to the groups of walkers forming against the fences.

"I know that's a stupid question, but I really wish you wouldn't ignore it."

She knew she should feel grateful to have someone who knew what had happened, that she should utilize Karen's knowledge and talk to her. She didn't want to talk though, she wanted to wallow in it and hope it went away. Remaining silent, she could hear Karen sigh behind her.

"At least tell me how you feel physically?"

It was Thea's turn to sigh and she closed her eyes for a long moment before speaking.

"I'm stiff, but the bruises are healing. My ribs will take longer though, and they hurt." She responded honestly, turned her head towards the brunette.

She didn't miss the look Karen gave her though she wished she had. Looks like those were the reason why she hadn't reported Hoyt and Josh to The Council like her friend had suggested.

She didn't want  _everyone_ to look at her with pity in their eyes.

The woman with the rifle nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the hatch door opening suddenly. They really were bad at this whole 'on guard' thing if they couldn't see a big guy like Tyreese coming.

It wasn't Tyreese, though, and Thea felt herself stiffen as Maggie Greene came into view.

She smiled at Karen and held her hands out for the rifle. "Figured you could use a night off." She explained in her southern drawl.

"Oh it's really no bother," Karen protested, eyes on Thea. "I think Thea should probably go rest some more though."

She'd rested enough.

Maggie agreed.

"Actually I was hoping I could talk with Thea."

Karen's gaze flickered between the farmer's daughter and the doctor curiously as they stared at each other. Maggie's eyes held determination to get to the bottom of what was really going on with the Brit. Thea's were filled with worry about information spreading through the prison like wildfire.

Finally, after a long moment Thea nodded to Karen that it was okay and the rifle was passed on. Karen disappeared into the stairwell of the tower and they were alone.

Thea turned back to the view of the fences and waited for the questioning to begin. When Maggie didn't speak right away she felt even more anxious. What was the other woman thinking? What did she think happened to her?

"You were attacked." It wasn't a question.

She didn't respond even when her heart skipped a beat and sweat formed on the back of her neck.

Maggie continued. "You were attacked in the library. That's why you have the bruise. That's why you're holding your side."

Thea laughed harshly, tried to hold back her tears. "Well it looks like you've got it all figured out, huh?" she remarked with a shake of the head.

A scoff followed and Maggie moved to lean against the section of railing to the left of where Thea stood, keeping her distance as she crossed her arms.

"I'm not an idiot, Thea, and I'm not the only one who has noticed the way you have been acting lately. Is that all that happened? You got jumped in the library and beat up?" she demanded to know.

She turned to face the southerner, one hand on the railing while the other arm hung loosely at her side. "What do you want me to say, Maggie? Do you want me to tell you how one guy held me down while the other one  _raped_ me?" She spoke angrily, the rage she had kept hidden bubbling up to the surface.

The other woman's face fell dramatically and she straightened up, her mouth fell open just a little in surprise. There was a look in her eyes that had Thea wondering if she had experience with this particular form of trauma; a haunted glow that seemed to conjure tears that refused to fall, instead making her already trouble eyes shimmer with old ghosts.

For some reason it made Thea's heart break.

"I'm not asking for your pity so you can save it." She growled.

She turned and went to the opposite side of the tower, gripping the binoculars in her hands a little too hard. She was pissed, beyond angry. She didn't need this getting around, definitely didn't need to hear things like 'it will be okay' or have someone tell her they were there for her. She didn't want that.

As her eyes fell to the courtyard she found Hoyt sitting on the bleachers, his eyes turned upwards to the tower and a grin spreading across his face.

He raised his hand to send her a wave.

Thea shivered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Also I had someone ask if I had thought of any actresses to use as visual reference for Thea. I mentioned before that her character is one that I have roleplayed as on Tumblr and her face claim on there is Camilla Luddington. If you want to see the haircut Thea gave herself in the chapter you can just search "Camilla Luddington short hair" and voila!
> 
> As usual, I'd love to hear what you thought of this chapter and thank you for reading! :)


	6. Tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: This chapter deals with some heavy stuff and gives us a little look back at Thea's sister and nephew. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

" _Maybe we could drive home. Mom and Dad are probably worried out of their minds about us!"_

_Thea turned to glance at her sister where she sat with Hank curled up on her lap in the passenger's seat of an old pickup they had managed to find with the keys still inside._

_Catherine's face looked like it had aged several years in the four weeks it had been since the initial outbreak of whatever virus was attacking the population. The worry lines that had been practically nonexistent before were now a permanent feature on the young woman's pale skin._

_She sighed and faced the road again, shaking her head. "We can't, Cat." She spoke softly to keep from waking up the sleeping toddler._

" _What do you mean 'we can't'?" Cathy demanded to know, not bothering to keep her voice down._

_Henry stirred but didn't wake up._

" _You saw how the highway was, there's no way we could get through that. And we sure as hell don't know the backroads of Georgia enough to find our way to the next state and_ then  _to West Virginia."_

_Her little sister huffed and rubbed at her forehead in exasperation, clearly not enjoying being told what to do. She had never taken to rules very well._

_They were silent for a long moment as Thea drove down the dirt road they had flagged on a map. It would lead to a lesser known road that would take them to the destination the older Ellis daughter had picked out._

" _And where are you proposing we go, exactly?" Catherine demanded to know in a softer voice, her fingers reaching down to comb through Hank's unruly blonde curls._

_If she could literally roll her eyes out of her skull she would have right then. "Fort Benning is our best option, Cat. They'll have answers and shelter and we can hunker down until we figure out what the hell is happening."_

_She took a left onto the paved road that had come into view and they drove for several minutes in silence. Thea understood that her sister was mad at her for not waiting up for Kyle to find them in the parking lot at Georgia Tech, but she_ had  _to think about her family's safety first. She was positive Kyle would want his wife and son safe even if that meant being without him. Cathy didn't see it that way and had called her older sister a few nasty names, but she had listened and they were all alive right now. That was what was most important._

_The pavement began to cut through a small town and Thea grabbed the map off the seat between the two women to see where to turn next just as an unnatural sputtering sound came from the engine. The truck slowed on its own and Thea mashed her foot on the gas pedal over and over to try to speed up, but it didn't work._

" _Shit." She muttered, slamming her palm against the steering wheel when the pickup came to a stop and died, smoke coming from underneath the hood._

" _What now?" Catherine asked as if it weren't obvious._

_Thea tossed the map aside and jumped out of the truck, moving around to lift the hood. She was instantly engulfed in smoke and coughed as it filled her lungs, waving her hand to try and clear it away from her._

" _What's wrong with it?" her sister called through the open passenger window._

_She had no idea to be honest. She knew nothing about cars, in fact she was pretty incompetent. Looking under the hood now she could identify the engine, the battery, and the spot where the oil went but that was the extent of her knowledge._

" _Well I would say it's dead, that much I'm sure on." She responded, placing her hands on her hips and tipping her head back to look at the sky in frustration._

_Cathy's door opened and she came around to look, Hank propped on her hip as he rubbed sleep from his blue eyes. "Well shit." She commented, looking just as lost as Thea did._

" _Mama, tha's a bad word." Hank told her sleepily._

_Catherine scoffed at the child, shaking her head with a small smile. "Yeah? Well you've heard worse than that, Sweetie."_

_Moving around to grab their bags from the cab, Thea slung her pack over her shoulders and handed Cathy's over to her. "We better keep moving. We'll try to find another car here in town before making our way towards Fort Benning."_

" _Great." Cat grumbled before following after her._

 _The little group walked a few blocks into town, Thea stopping to check the cars along the way but not having any luck. It wasn't like she could hotwire one, so they were relying solely on the luck that someone might have left their keys behind. And it was_ bad  _luck._

_As they turned down what was labeled as 'Oak Street', Thea following the map as best she could, they stopped dead in their tracks as the smell of rotting flesh hit them smack in the face._

_Standing before them was about forty of the infected. They had been standing dormant for reasons unknown, but now that three walking meals had stumbled across them they began to snarl and reach out with graying fingers and tripping over their own feet to get to them._

" _Run! Get into one of the buildings!" Thea yelled to her sister, who clutched her son closer and turned to race down the street._

_Thea pulled the handgun she had found in one of the apartments they had stayed in for a few nights and fired at a few of the infected closest to her. It took two shots to take down the first one, thankfully she got the second with one shot, but then the third required four bullets. She really needed to practice with this thing._

_As she took aim and fired upon a fourth dead one she hit it in the neck and then pulled the trigger again, but the only sound that came was a click. The clip was empty._

" _SHIT!" she shouted and threw the gun into the face of the former waitress who was shambling forward to take a bite out of the Brit._

_She turned to follow her sister and caught sight of her disappearing into an abandoned movie rental store and slamming the door shut just as four of the dead slammed into it, blocking Thea from getting inside._

_Inside she could see Catherine and Hank's terrified faces as they watched the large herd begin to descend on the doctor. The boy was crying as he yelled something she couldn't hear, reading his lips told her he was calling her name, but she didn't have time to see what else because a hand grabbed her arm roughly._

_She screamed and yanked her arm back hard managing to release herself from the creature's grip, and then turned to race down the street as fast as she could._

_The herd followed, somehow keeping close to her even though they couldn't move faster than a quick stumble._

_There was a firetruck that had been abandoned in front of a bookstore and she ran for it, climbing up the side and wrenching open the passenger side door to climb inside._

" _Ahhh! God!" She exclaimed as a dead fireman, about three times her size, came tumbling out of the truck. She narrowly missed getting pancaked beneath him, rolling sideways away from his grasping hands._

_She climbed up the truck again and this time grabbed at the long red axe that hung on the side, jumping down and swinging the thing into the dead firefighter's head with a dull thunk. The herd was fast approaching and she knew that she had to lead the away from the movie store and find her way back, so she yanked the axe from the dead one's head with a sickening squelch and took off down the street once again, her legs protesting as she sprinted with all her might._

_In the end, after leading the herd more than ten blocks away and doubling back, she had returned to the movie rental shop in a state of exhaustion with rotting blood on her skin to find it empty._

_Catherine and Henry were nowhere to be found. And she never saw them again._

* * *

She was roused from her fitful sleep by a soft rustling sound that had her springing up in her bunk quickly. She instantly hissed in pain, having forgotten about her ribs, and gripped her side as she squeezed her eyes shut.

"Sorry, I was just looking to see if you had any more of that stuff you gave me for nausea." Maggie apologized from where she was crouched down by Thea's bag.

The doctor sighed and swung her legs off the bunk to stand, holding her side painfully. She grabbed the bottle of medicine from the little shelf that was mounted on the wall and handed it over.

"You know, you should really have my dad or Dr. S take a look at those ribs."

Thea shook her head quickly and dropped her arms to her side for good measure. "I'm fine, Maggie. Besides, I'm a doctor, I'm capable of looking after myself just fine."

She didn't mean it to come out so nasty, but it did and Maggie frowned at the tone of voice and turned to exit the cell.

She stopped in the doorway and her eyes found Thea's again. "You know we're just trying to look out for you. You're one of us now." She whispered, her face set in worry as she left.

Great. Now she was pushing away people who cared about her all because of something a couple of good-for-nothing assholes had put her through. It was a never ending spiral into cutting herself off from everyone, and she needed to remedy that.

Since it wasn't like she was going to be able to go back to sleep any time soon, it appeared to be just before dawn, she pulled her sneakers back on and grabbed a light jacket and then headed out of the cell block. She stopped in the courtyard and sat on the bleachers, arms wrapped around herself to help fight off the chill of the wind, and stared out at the groups of walkers that had formed on the fences overnight.

Their moaning and groaning could be heard even from where she sat and it sent a shiver up her spine. They were never going to truly be rid of these beasts, were they? It was almost like the little community they had set up here was drawing more of them out, like the dead needed to always have the living in their sights.

It wasn't making her feel particularly good about her current situation. She wondered if she might be safer on her own, away from Hoyt and Josh, away from the walker-attracting group of individuals living inside the prison.

Maybe she should leave, continue her search for Cat and Hank.

Footsteps made their way across the courtyard and she stiffened, strained her ears to listen if she could tell where they were headed. When it became obvious they were growing closer to her she whipped her head around quickly, eyes wide and fearful that Hoyt had come for her again.

"Easy." Daryl grunted, squinting at her.

The sun was just beginning to rise but they were still shrouded in grey light for the time being. She could see a pack of cigarettes in one of his hands, his crossbow on his back.

He came to a stop on her left side and offered the pack to her wordlessly.

She shook her head. "I don't smoke."

That earned her a snort and she watched as he pulled one cigarette out for himself, lighting it and then shoving the pack and lighter back in his pocket.

"Don't look the type, anyhow." He grumbled around the white stick.

"What's that supposed to mean?" demanded Thea.

He shrugged and blew a puff of smoke out of the side of his mouth, cigarette held between his thumb and forefinger.

"Just don't look like the type o' girl who smokes."

She wondered what type of girls she  _did_ look like. "Then why did you offer?"

Daryl's eye flickered to her face for a long second or two. "Looked like you could use one."

She stared back at him with furrowed brows, wondering just what was going on in his head, then her eyes flickered to the weapon he carried.

"You going out?" she asked, changing the subject and returning her gaze to the fence line.

She could feel his eyes on her still, studying her. It didn't make her skin crawl the way Hoyt's eyes did, but it did send a shiver up her spine. She wondered why.

Finally he gave a grunt and looked away. "Gonna see if I can find any deer."

He wasn't much of a talker, obviously, and this was the longest conversation she had ever had with him. The first time they had been alone since that run when they'd found the Decatur group. She was surprised to find things weren't as awkward as she expected them to be.

Lifting her hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, she responded. "Squirrels not doing it for you anymore?" she teased.

He scoffed and flicked the ash off his cigarette, taking another drag and then tossing the remaining butt to the ground to stomp it out.

"Got more mouths to feed is all."

Short and to the point. She began to wonder how anyone held conversations with him for longer than a few minutes.

And then she wished he hadn't stopped by her side at all as he faced her again and she could feel him stiffen.

"The hell is that?" he asked, voice darker.

She realized her mistake then, tucking her hair back on the left side, the side he stood on. He had seen her bruise, and though it was now about a day or two from fading away completely it was still obvious in the morning light that something had impacted her temple hard.

She didn't have the courage to move to cover it with her hair.

"Nothing." She commented, tried to act nonchalant.

He studied her for several long seconds. Seconds that seemed to drag on and on forever before she met his blue gaze with her hazel eyes.

"Don't look like nothing," He spoke in a tone softer than she thought was possible for him.

"It is nothing." She assured him quickly.

He was an incredibly perceptive man, another reason why she was curious about his life before the turn, and she could tell that he could see right through the bullshit she was feeding him. She thought he might call her out, but in the end he made a small grunt in his throat and turned away from her.

He walked away from the bleachers without another word, making his way out of the gate and into the guard tower just outside it where Carol was on watch.

She wondered if that would be the end of the discussion or if he had more to say.

* * *

She must have sat for a good long while after that just staring at the walkers on the fences because the door to C Block opened and startled her back into reality and she realized it was daylight outside and Rick and Carl were emerging from the cell block to head down to work on the crops and feed the pigs.

The older of the two sent his son down before him and came to stand in front of Thea.

"Maggie tells me you've been acting strange." He commented casually.

Thea huffed in frustration, a laugh escaping her lips. She was really starting to regret letting her anger lead to confessing to Maggie what had happened; she was not going to let this go was she?

"Daryl said you've got a nasty bruise on your head. Mind if I take a look?"

When the hell had Daryl gone back inside long enough to inform Rick of what he saw? She growled and stood, moving off the bleachers and onto the court. "Jesus Christ," she exclaimed, keeping her distance from the former sheriff. "It's nothing, I fell and hit my head on one of the shelves in the library that night when I went to read. When Ty took over my watch." She lied.

He saw right through it, he was a cop after all and more than likely had heard every excuse in the book for unexplained injuries.

"Daryl says different."

"Daryl doesn't know shit!"

They were both surprised by her outburst, and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself as she noticed Carol approaching from where she had just exited the guard tower.

"What's going on?" she asked curiously, eyeing Thea suspiciously.

The doctor didn't need this. Didn't need an audience with a council-member and a farmer. She turned and made her way back into the cell block and up to her cell, hell bent on ignoring four specific people for the rest of the day.

* * *

She only managed to avoid interacting with anyone for a few hours. Hours she spent sleeping in her bunk until she was suddenly pulled from sleep by shouting. She frowned and tried to roll over to ignore whatever was going on, but soon she heard her name being called.

"Thea! We need Thea!" a voice exclaimed from the main floor, followed by feet pounding on the steel stairs and towards her room.

She sprung off the bottom bunk before they reached her and flung the sheet to the side just as Carl came skidding to a stop outside her cell.

His eyes were wide and he looked frantically at her, fear evident on his face.

"What's going on?" She demanded to know, her own eyes widening.

Carl shook his head and waved his hand at her to follow him, turning to run back towards the stairs. "We have to hurry!"

"Shit." She muttered, following after him as fast as she could. Her ribs protested at the sudden movement but she kept moving until she was down the stairs.

Carl didn't stop in any of the cells, instead running around to the entrance to the tombs. He led her through the dark hallways, still not bothering to explain even when she shouted at him to talk to her.

Eventually they entered the showers and she could see four or five people gathered around someone on the tile floor, all murmuring worriedly and relieved to see her. They parted like the red sea when she approached and she froze in her tracks at what lay before her.

Laying on the tile, blood pooling around his body and spurting from a gaping wound in his neck was Josh. His eyes were wide and blinking as he gurgled on his own blood.

She couldn't move. She studied him for a long couple of seconds and spotted the straight razor that lay nearby. It looked like someone had sliced his carotid artery and part of her wanted to let him bleed out right there for his part in the library incident.

One of the survivors who lived in D Block, her name Thea couldn't remember, yelled for her to do something and she jumped into action.

Kneeling beside Josh she quickly wrapped her hands around the right side of his neck to apply pressure to the wound. Blood coated her hands and she could feel it seeping through her jeans where she had landing in it.

"Someone get some towels!" She yelled, her hands obviously not helping much.

Carl shoved a couple of white terry cloth towels at her and she grabbed one to press against the wound, watching as it became stained red.

"Carl, I need you to run and grab the first aid kit from my bunk, okay? Run as fast as you can. Go, now!" she instructed.

The young boy ran from the room and she turned her eyes back to the wound, pressed a second towel down on top of the first. It wasn't helping and Josh was growing pale as he lost more and more blood.

"Okay," She whispered to herself before quickly removing the towels. She leaned over his torso to get a proper look at what she was dealing with and could see the artery pumping in his neck, spilling pint after pint onto the dark tile.

The young boy whimpered in pain, his eyes filling with tears as he stared up at her with desperation.

She couldn't tell if he was begging to be saved or for her to let him go.

Reaching into his neck, she used two fingers to pinch the carotid together and control the bleeding as much as she could. She needed Carl to get back and fast or else this kid was going to die in a dirty prison shower. He may have had a hand in attacking her, but looking into his eyes now she felt her anger at him dissipate.

He was a  _kid._

She lost her grip on the artery suddenly and he sputtered, coughing blood up out of his mouth. It streaked down his jaw and down over his ear as she reclaimed her hold over the wound.

A hand gripped the front of her shirt and she realized it was Josh's. He tugged at her shirt weakly and his mouth opened and closed a few times like a fish out of water. Tears spilled out of his eyes.

"I-" he coughed, eyes locked on hers. "I-I'm…s-ss-ory."

Thea was surprised to feel her own eyes well up and she shook her head frantically, shushing him gently.

"It's o- _kay_." Her voice cracked and she saw one of her tears land on the bridge of his nose and roll off. She had hated him for weeks, furiously tried to figure out just why he had been a part of something so terrible, but now as he lay dying in front of her she could see that he was just a scared little kid.

Her heart broke.

His eyes held hers and he looked so terrified, but then he seemed to come to terms with what was about to happen.

What was  _happening_.

And then she felt the pulse in his neck slow to only a beat every few seconds. As the beats lessened to nothing she saw his pupils dilate and one final, ragged breath escaped his lips. He was gone.

She didn't move, her hands still sunk into the hole in his neck as if it were helping anything. She stared at his young face, the face that had previously played a part in her nightmares, and let out the breath she had not realized she was holding in.

Carl's feet sounded on the tile and he came back into the room with the first aid kit and a few others in tow, including his father.

"Here!" the kid said, holding the kit out to her.

She didn't move as one of the women who had been here when she arrived told the others Josh was dead in between sobs. She sighed slowly then and pulled her hands off of the fatal wound. They were coated in red, sticky mess and Thea used her forearm to brush her hair out of her face as her hands shook.

"What the hell happened?" She asked, eyes turning up to the group.

The sobbing woman wiped her face and spoke in fragments. "He said…he said he was…tired of feeling guilty." She stammered.

"Guilty 'bout what?" Daryl chimed in from where he stood behind Rick, squinting at the woman.

Thea hadn't realized he was there and she took the moment to see who else had followed the younger Grimes. Herschel, Glenn, Dr. S, and Sasha were gathered in the entrance to the showers.

The woman shook her head. "He wouldn't say. I followed him, but I couldn't stop him before he—" She cut off in a sob again.

Thea had a few guesses.

She stood slowly. "Someone needs to take care of the body before he turns." She said softly and moved over to one of the shower heads.

She worked the pump a few times and then put her hands under the spray of water to wash away Josh's blood before grabbing a towel to dry them off.

And then she turned and slipped through group silently, walking the hallways back to C Block and then back up to her cell.

* * *

A few hours later Karen came knocking on the wall just beside her cell, two plates in her hands.

The group had cooked up the deer Daryl had brought back from his hunt, having returned just before the incident in the showers. Thea hadn't bothered to come down for dinner when Beth had come to tell her they were all eating. She was still trying to figure out just what the hell had happened today.

Had she really forgiven Josh for his part in the attack or was she simply trying to make his final moments easier?

Why did it seem to affect her so much that he had killed himself over the guilt of what he had done?

"Hey, you must be starving." Karen spoke, moving to sit beside her on the bottom bunk and handing over one of the plates.

Thea's stomach growled in response as she smelled the venison and caught sight of the vegetables that were on the plate with it. "Thank you." She replied softly, picking up a piece of meet with her fingers and stuffing it into her mouth.

They ate silently for several minutes before Karen finally spoke.

"Was it Josh?"

For a second Thea wondered what she meant by that; by now the entire prison knew that it was Josh who had died. She hadn't told her friend  _who_ had been involved in the library, but clearly Karen had put it together.

"He didn't…he didn't  _do_  anything other than hold me down." She replied quietly, staring at the wall across from them.

The darker haired woman shook her head and turned her body to face Thea, one leg tucked underneath her while the other hung off the cot.

"You have to tell someone, Thea. If not the council then Rick, he was a cop."

She was quick to shake her own head. "No, no, Kar—"

"—Josh killed himself but there is still one other person in this prison who has done horrible things. What if he has done this to other women? What if he is going to do this to someone else?"

Thea's heart raced at the thought that Hoyt had gotten his hands on anyone else. There were quite a few female survivors in the prison and with quarters so close it wouldn't be hard for him to scope out other victims. Add in the fact that there were plenty of places he could drag an unsuspecting girl for the attack and she could literally feel her blood pressure sky rocket.

She should tell Rick.

God, she felt so selfish for only thinking about herself. She had let this thing take over her life and now she was forced to come to terms with the fact that if she did nothing Hoyt would think it was okay to do this type of thing for however long he stayed at the prison.

But how exactly was she supposed to tell Rick when saying the words out loud made her want to vomit?

And was she ready to be seen as the victim she knew everyone would treat her as?

She decided she would have to be.

* * *

The next morning she got up early with the sun and gone to take a quick shower. She pulled on a pair of jeans and a tank top, which she covered up with an open flannel shirt so that no one could tell she had wrapped up her ribs, and slid her feet into her sneakers.

By the time she was ready most of the cell block had woken up and the group that was heading out for the run to the Big Spot, as Karen had informed her last night, had begun packing up the vehicles they were taking.

On her way down from her cell Dr. S came over with a folded piece of paper in his hand.

"Here's the list of meds we made, thought you might want to add anything your stash needs and then you could pass it on to Daryl?"

Nodding, she took the paper and unraveled it to see what had already been written. She was quick to grab a pencil from a nearby table and add some pain meds before folding the paper once more and heading for the courtyard.

Daryl was standing by his motorcycle and she could see Sasha and Bob talking by the green Hyundai. The silver truck Glenn often drove was parked behind them and Glenn, Tyreese, and Zach were busy loading things into each vehicle.

Thea made her way across the courtyard and stopped on the side of the bike Daryl wasn't standing on, hand holding the paper outstretched.

"Hey, here's the list of stuff Dr. S and Herschel made. We were hoping you guys could keep a look out for some meds and other stuff?"

She felt weird talking to him after the conversation they'd had the other night by the bleachers, but if he felt the same awkwardness he didn't show it.

He grunted and glanced at the paper but made no move to take it.

"Or you could come with us and look for yourself." He grumbled, squinting through the sun to look at her.

She thought for a moment about how she shouldn't be overexerting herself until her ribs were properly healed, about how she had promised Karen she would talk to Rick today, and then decided that it wouldn't hurt anything to hold off on that for another day.

She was good at avoiding things.

"Yeah, okay. Let me get my stuff." She agreed, stuffing the paper in her pocket and heading back for the cell block to get her pack and axe.

This probably wasn't a good idea, but it was better than staying at the prison with Hoyt leering at her at every turn.

She would talk to Rick tomorrow.


	7. Guilt and Denial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

When they made it to the Big Spot! Thea could see that the army had tried to put up some kind of refuge for civilians, a refuge that had obviously gone to shit.

The front of the store was surrounded by tall chain-link fences and inside those fences she could see green army tents set up. There were crates overturned or busted open littering the area and she could see into one of the tents enough to spot overturned cots.

Clearly they had tried to create a makeshift medical bay, hopefully there would be some supplies left over.

"Army came in and put these fences up," Daryl was explaining to Bob as if it weren't obvious. "Made it a place for the people to go. Last week when we spotted this place, there was a bunch of walkers behind this chain-link keeping people out like a bunch of guard dogs."

Thea squinted at a portion of the fence that appeared to be cut open. Bits of decaying flesh hung on the ragged ends of broken chain-link as if walkers had squeezed through and gotten caught along the way.

"So they all just left?" Bob asked.

Sasha, who stood behind the two men with a rifle in hand, sighed. "Give a listen."

Thea strained her ears to figure out what the woman meant, and then she heard it. Music was playing loudly in the distance but she wasn't quite sure where it was coming from.

"You drew them out." Michonne commented, impressed.

Sasha smirked, clearly pleased with herself. "Put a boom box out there three days ago."

"Hooked it up to two car batteries." Glenn added.

Thea had to admit that she would have never thought about that. Guess that was why she wasn't in charge of runs.

Daryl grunted as if to say that he was tired of all the talking and then moved to squeeze through the hole in the fence.

"All right, let's make a sweep. Make sure it's safe." He instructed. "Grab what you can. We'll come back tomorrow with more people."

Bob followed after him and then Sasha, Tyreese, Michonne, and Zach. Glenn waved Thea in front of him and she did her best to hide the wince that pulled at her features when twisting her body to fit through the hole without slicing herself on the ends covered with walker blood shot pain up her side.

She made her way into one of the tents to check for anything that could be useful, but all that she could find was the cots and a few knocked over stands that doctors would hang IV drips from. They had clearly used all the supplies before whatever had happened here turned everyone into the dead.

Not that it appeared that they had much to begin with.

She didn't bother checking the other tents as the rest of the group were doing that, instead she moved to join Daryl, Zach, and Michonne where they were waiting by the front of the store.

The two men were seated on the small ledge-like window sill while Michonne leaned against a pillar by the door. Thea crossed her arms over her chest and stood off to the side, keeping her distance but close enough to listen to their conversation.

"I've been trying to guess what Daryl did before the turn," Zach was explaining to the katana wielder.

This was something that perked Thea up; she'd been wondering this herself for a while.

Daryl scoffed. "He's been tryin' to guess for, like, six weeks."

The younger man shrugged. "Yeah, I'm pacing myself. One shot a day."

"All right, shoot."

There was a moment as Zach paused to gather his thoughts and then he was off. "Well, the way you are at the prison, you being on the council, you're able to track, you're helping people but you're still being kind of…uh…surly. Big swing here." He paused for dramatic effect. "Homicide cop."

Michonne burst out laughing in an uncharacteristic manner, at least uncharacteristic by Thea's standards since she hadn't seen the woman laugh much, and Daryl glared in her direction.

"What's so funny?" He demanded to know.

Michonne didn't lose her smile as she responded. "Nothing. It makes perfect sense."

Daryl shrugged. "Actually, the man's right. Undercover."

The blond man was suddenly very pleased with himself. "C'mon, really?" he asked, excited that he may have figured it out.

"Yep. I mean, I don't like to talk about it 'cause it was a lot of heavy shit, you know?" Daryl said in an almost believable tone, looking away from them as if just admitting this brought back memories he didn't want to recall.

Thea wasn't believing this for a second.

"Dude, come on, really?" Zach replied in disbelief.

The dark haired man turned and just looked at him blankly for a few seconds before looking down at his crossbow in his lap and clearing his throat. As he adjusted his grip on the weapon, Zach snorted.

"Okay, I'll just keep guessing, I guess."

"Yeah, you keep doing that."

"Mm-hmm."

Thea shook her head at the two of them. She had never considered them friends, but it was clear that they got along pretty well.

They were all silent for a moment before Zach seemed to turn the tables on the Brit.

"You were a doctor, right?" he asked her suddenly.

She nodded and shifted uncomfortably, not really enjoying that all eyes had turned towards her.

Zach didn't seem to notice her reaction. "What's the grossest thing you ever saw?" He wondered.

As Thea opened her mouth to respond two walkers suddenly slammed against the glass windows behind Daryl and Zach, causing the latter to startle. The former simply stood like nothing had happened.

"We gonna do this, detective?" Michonne asked him.

"Let's do it."

Thea gripped her axe anxiously as the two moved to open the once automatic doors. It had been over a month since she had left the prison, over a month since she had even been face-to-face with a walker. She had never gone down to the fences to help put down the walkers accumulated there, the council having decided that a doctor shouldn't do something that might put them in harm's way.

It kind of sucked to be considered valuable these days.

Daryl and Michonne wretched open the glass doors and several walkers spilled out, immediately being taken down by either crossbow or katana. As the rest of the group joined them at the entrance, several more walkers came from inside the store.

Tyreese quickly helped dispatch them before any could get very far, and Thea only felt a small amount of relief at being spared the duty of putting any down.

Zach and Tyreese pulled the bodies off to the side as Sasha turned to face everyone.

"All right, we go in, stay in formation for the sweep. After that, you all know what you're supposed to look for. Thea, you're handling the meds, right?"

Thea nodded once.

Sasha returned the nod and then glance at the others. "Any questions?"

No one spoke up and Daryl stepped into the store, followed by Michonne and Glenn.

"Was there ever a time that you weren't the boss of me?" Thea heard Tyreese ask his sister.

"You had a few years before I was born." The woman replied smugly.

* * *

Thankfully there hadn't been any walkers straggling behind in the store and so they were able to begin their search for supplies without any problems arising.

Thea picked up one of those plastic, hand-held baskets and moved through the aisles towards the section beneath a sign that read  _'Toiletries & More'_ in hopes that any first aid supplies would be there as well. Everyone else spread out through the store to find the things on their lists, most pushing shopping carts with them.

It was odd being in a store and hearing the carts being pushed around, almost like things weren't as bad as they were and this was a normal shopping trip. All they needed now was catchy shop music to play softly over the forgotten speakers.

She felt a sigh of relief escape her as she caught sight of an entire shelf of first aid supplies ranging from cotton swabs to bottles of peroxide to ACE bandages. Her ease was short lived though, as there didn't appear to be any medicine of any kind. Not even crappy generic brand painkillers.

They couldn't always get lucky though, so she really shouldn't let this bother her so much.

As she began to throw as many items as possible into her basket, grabbing even the stuff they didn't necessarily need, she began to wish she had grabbed an actual push cart instead. And just as she was debating whether or not to go back to the front of the store to grab one she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

She could hear footsteps approaching her from behind and suddenly she was alone in that dark library again, her heart pounding in her chest rapidly and her palms becoming sweaty. Her breath caught in her throat.

"Find anything good?" a male voice asked suddenly, startling her.

She jumped and the basket fell to the floor with a loud clatter, the contents spilling out across the tile. She spun quickly and was faced with Tyreese's large form looming over her, and though she knew the man would never hurt her she still flinched as he raised a hand out to steady her.

Upon seeing her reaction he stopped short and furrowed his brow. "You okay? I didn't mean to scare you."

Thea wondered if Karen had told him anything. She quickly realized that her friend wouldn't do that.

"Yeah, sorry," she brushed it off with a forced laugh, tucking the right side of her hair behind her ear. "I'm just a little jumpy, is all. It's been a while since I left the prison."

He stared at her for a moment before it finally looked like he believed her and then he squatted to pick up her basket and the things she had put in it.

"I get it; it's been a while since I left too. Sorry for sneaking up on you." He apologized with a kind smile.

Just as she was about to stoop to help him a loud crash broke through the silence, accompanied by the sound of glass smashing on the floor and a pained scream.

Tyreese shot to his feet, trusty hammer at the ready, and peered over the shelves. "The hell was that?" he wondered aloud before glancing her way. "Stay here."

Before she could protest he was making his way down the aisle and disappearing around the corner, and she was alone again unsure if they were being attacked by walkers or if it had just been an accident.

"What happened?" She heard Glenn yell from across the store.

Zach called back a few seconds later. "Everyone's all right. We're over in  _Wine & Beer_."

The Brit felt a moment of assuagement before it all went to shit.

A walker suddenly hurtled down through the ceiling and hung there from its entrails, snapping at them and trying to reach out as if he had impossibly long arms that could indeed grab one of them below.

"Yeah, uh, we should probably go now." She heard Glenn declare, something she couldn't agree more with.

Forgetting the items still scattered on the floor beneath her she grabbed her axe and turned for the entrance.

"Bob's still stuck, get him out of there!" yelled Daryl, followed by a response that she couldn't make out.

She hadn't made it four steps before walkers began raining through the ceiling.

* * *

" _You sure this is a good idea? If Dr. Montagne catches us we're going to be in deep shit. Do I look like I want to be doing SCUT for the next month?" Larissa Johnson rambled as she followed Thea into the observation room that overlooked the operating room._

_The chairs in the observation room were usually full of other surgeons and interns dying to get a peek at an interesting surgery, but today they were empty. Down below Dr. Montagne was in the middle of operating on a prominent member of society, what the patient did had not been disclosed to anyone who wouldn't be in the OR with the doctor and that had only made Thea all the more curious._

" _Don't be such a wuss, Lar." Thea whispered, planting herself in one of the chairs in the very back row. "If we leave the light off he'll never know we're here."_

_The blonde intern sighed wearily before sinking into the chair beside her friend and turning her attention to the OR below._

_Thea was annoyed to find that the patient's face was covered to preserve his privacy, but that annoyance quickly disappeared as she realized Dr. Montagne had just made his incision in the scalp._

_He pulled the scalp forward to reveal the white skull beneath, which the camera positioned behind the table displayed on a large monitor, and Thea held her breath in anticipation._

_A section of skull was cut and removed. Thea's heart was racing and she felt her eyes on the verge of welling up with tears at the sight before her. She had seen a human brain before in medical school, but the brains she had seen were all from cadavers. Now before her was a fully functioning and_ living  _brain and she couldn't help but be amazed at the beauty of it. It really was astonishing to think that Dr. Montagne had just opened someone's head and their entire life was sitting before them._

_It amazed her how doctors could see every part of a person, literally._

_She vaguely registered Larissa complimenting the doctor's technique but she found she couldn't tear her attention away from the monitor._

_The human brain was a beautiful thing._

* * *

A walker crashed through the ceiling and landed right in front of her, mushy skull splitting open and rotting brains splattering on the tile.

She moved around it quickly in a panic, praying silently that a dead one didn't land right on top of her and turn her into a flapjack. Almost on cue another one came through right in front of her, this one landing on a stack of boxes that broke its fall.

It stood and moved towards her with an animalistic growl and arms outstretched, and she raised her axe quickly to swing it into the beast's head. It connected with a squish and her ribs protested loudly. She couldn't pull the axe from the walker as it fell and she went down with it, one hand gripping her side as she hissed in pain.

"Shit." She cried out, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before a growl from nearby drew her attention back to the matter at hand.

A walker in a tattered sundress was shambling forward and she still couldn't pull her axe from the other one's head. She stepped on its chest to give herself some leverage and yanked with all her might, only for the axe to come free and the momentum sent her flying backwards into a display of toilet paper.

Her ribcage connected hard with the crate the bathroom tissue was on and she couldn't hold back the shout of pain that bubbled up her throat.

The female walker's arms outstretched towards her but a second later its head exploded as a shot rang out. Decaying brains sprayed the shelf behind it and then it was slumping to the ground in a heap.

Thea whipped her head around to see who had taken the walker down and found Daryl standing on top of a several cases of beer stacked nearby with his gun pointed in her direction despite the three walkers that were trying to get at him from below.

She didn't have time to thank him, instead getting to her feet as quickly as she could with her ribs throbbing and grabbing her axe from where it had landed.

Everything was moving so fast then, she remembered hearing blood curdling screams but not knowing who they belonged to. Sasha's hand had grabbed her forearm roughly and dragged her from the store as a helicopter began to come through the holey roof.

She didn't get to see who hadn't made it out before Sasha shoved her in the green Hyundai. Glenn, Tyreese, and Bob got in with them and they were speeding away from the Big Spot! before the ruckus drew more of the living dead.

Guess they wouldn't be back tomorrow after all.

* * *

They drove for several miles in silence, the entire time Thea kept glancing in the side mirror to see if she could figure out who was in the truck behind them, who had made it out and who hadn't.

She wondered what had caused the run to go downhill. What was the initial crash that had drawn the attention of the walkers on the roof?

Most importantly, how many of them had been lost to either flesh eaters or the helicopter that collapsed through the ceiling?

A mile later the Hyundai slowed to a stop on the side of the road and Sasha jumped from the vehicle with a slam of the door. The truck was coming to a stop behind them and as Thea opened up her own door she heard the rumble of Daryl's motorcycle as he came up beside the cars.

She stayed on the passenger side of the Hyundai and peered over the hood to see who was exiting the silver truck, her hand pressed tightly against her side. There was no hiding that she was in pain now; she had probably made her ribs worse.

Glenn and Michonne were the only two in the truck which meant that they'd lost Zach. Thea twisted her head to see if he would miraculously come out of thin air but it was no use. Those screams had been his and he was gone.

"What the hell happened back there?" Sasha demanded as they gathered by Daryl's bike.

Thea wanted to know too but she kept her distance not wanting to draw any attention to her injuries.

Bob looked down with shame. "I ran my cart into a shelf of wine. It came down on me, must have alerted the walkers on the roof that we were in there."

How had he managed to ram into an entire shelf? It seemed like the type of thing that happened in a Three Stooges movie or something, and Thea felt her skepticism grow.

"And Zach?" Michonne added.

Bob didn't answer, the guilt on his face growing exponentially.

Daryl shook his head once. "Helped pull Bob out and then a walker took him down."

That wasn't a nice way for anyone to go, torn to shreds by teeth and hands. She sighed softly, resting her head against the hood of the Hyundai.

As she stood there with her adrenaline wearing off she started to really feel the damage to her ribs and she let out a ragged breath to mask the whimper. Apparently not too well.

"Thea? You okay?" Glenn was suddenly asking her, having heard her and spotted her hunkered over the vehicle.

She lifted her head quickly and waved them off. "I'm fine." She lied.

They didn't believe her and Sasha stepped forward. "What's wrong with your side? Did you get bit?" she demanded to know.

Thea wondered who had put her in charge.

At the mention of a possible bite she noticed everyone stiffen, hands inched closer to weapons.

"No, it's not a bite!" She quickly reassured them. "I just…I fell wrong. Think I might have cracked a rib or two." She could use this to her advantage, act like she had been perfectly fine prior to the run and avoid having to explain the real reason for her injury.

Tyreese moved to her side and she tried with all her might not to flinch away as he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and gripped her upper arm with the other, almost like he was supporting her. He seemed oblivious to the fact that it made her extremely uncomfortable.

"We should get her back to the prison so Herschel or Dr. S can take a look at her." He stated as if it weren't obvious.

Thea huffed at him, shrinking out of his embrace. "I'm a doctor, you know. I'm more than capable of taking care of myself." She grumbled even as pain shot through her.

Sasha rolled her eyes hard and let out a frustrated sound. "We don't have time for this. You don't want our help that's fine, I'm not going to stand around and argue about it. Let's move out."

* * *

Returning to the prison without supplies, good news, and one member short hadn't been very fun. And even less fun was having to explain to Herschel the situation with her ribs because Tyreese absolutely was not going to let her get off easy with it. Luckily for her Herschel had agreed to let Maggie help Thea wrap them, so she didn't have to explain to anyone why she  _already had an ACE bandaged wrapped tightly around herself._ That probably wouldn't have gone well for her.

As the older Greene daughter finished tightly securing the bandage Thea realized that there was something palpable in the air. It wasn't really relief but that seemed to be the only word she could describe it as.

"I'm not pregnant," Maggie spoke up as if she could read Thea's mind.

The doctor lowered her shirt back down and turned to face the farmer's daughter.

"That's good news, right?" She asked, still unsure what Maggie had wanted the outcome to be.

Maggie set down the tape she had used to secure Thea's bandage and shrugged her shoulders. She didn't seem sad, but there wasn't a smile on her face either. "It wouldn't have been a bad thing…"

She trailed off and moved towards the door but stopped before she could leave. "You shouldn't have gone out there today. You knew what condition you were in and you went anyways. You might not have made it back."

She disappeared before Thea could respond and she sighed heavily. She sure was glad that people weren't afraid to tell her how they really felt; it was only adding to the idea of leaving for good.

Thea turned and grabbed her bag of toiletries from the table, then made her way out of the cell block and down the tombs towards the showers. She needed to wash her face and then turn in for the night, hopefully she could avoid another verbal lashing from another survivor.

The showers were thankfully empty and she moved to the makeshift sink, pumping water into the bowl and brushing her hair back out of her face long enough to splash some cold water on her skin. She used the small bit of the bar of soap she had left to scrub at her face before rinsing and then grabbing a towel to pat dry.

As she hung the towel over her shoulder, grabbed her bag, and turned to exit the shower block she gasped loudly and stumbled backwards into the sink as she caught sight of Daryl leaning against the doorframe almost casually.

"How long have you been standing there?" she asked, her eyes narrowing at him.

He avoided the question in usual Daryl fashion. "You didn't hurt yourself on the run today."

It wasn't a question and they both knew he was right. She wouldn't admit that though.

"Oh yeah? What makes you think that?" she retorted in an attempt to stand her ground.

He was squinting at her like he always did. She wondered if he needed to get his eyes checked.

"Ain't stupid. You been hurt for a couple o' weeks now."

She was silent for a long moment and he continued.

"Seen the bruises, seen the way you been avoiding people. Something happened."

Thea scoffed. She had been on the receiving end of more than enough lectures today and she wasn't about to stand her for another. Stepping towards the door slowly she held her head high.

"You sure Zach wasn't right about you? You seem to be pretty keen on the goings on around here,  _Detective Dixon_." She ground out in annoyance.

It was a low blow bringing up the friend Daryl had just lost but she was trying to get out of here as fast as possible. She stopped in the doorway but kept a decent amount of space between them.

"You stick to hunting deer, you're better at that."

The words came out in a growl and she didn't wait to see how he might respond before slipping into the tombs and back towards the cells for some much needed rest.


	8. Tomorrow is Gonna Be Better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

_It was hot. Unbearably hot. It had been growing hotter by the day now, meaning it was probably mid-summer and it was only going to get hotter for a while before autumn finally saved her._

_She had been alone for two weeks now; there still wasn't a single sign of Catherine and Henry or a trail she could follow. She feared that they might be dead, and she had cried more than a few times thinking about what had happened to them._

_Before the world had ended she had been content to the single life. She never really had time for relationships with medical school and then her internship, and so she would spend most days either at the hospital or at home sleeping it off. The last serious relationship she had was in her first year of university and since then she'd had a few one-nighters but nothing more._

_So she was pretty used to being alone, but at least before she knew there were people around. Nowadays she feared that she would never see another human being again._

_As if it was summoned by that very thought one of the infected appeared several yards ahead of her on the hiking trail she'd been following. It wore a pair of green overalls and a loud clinking noise came from the bear trap that was snapped closed around one ankle, which the dead man had to drag behind with a limp._

_The creature was far enough ahead that it didn't see her and she simply slipped silently off the trail and into the trees, trying her best to avoid stepping on any twigs or rustling any leaves._

_It had become a motto of hers not to kill any of those things unless she had no other choice and so far it hadn't been an issue. Her sister had surprisingly advocated for killing them, explaining that it could be seen as putting them out of their misery, but now that Thea was on her own she didn't want to put herself in any situations she couldn't get out of._

_She didn't have anyone to watch her back anymore._

_Her head was beginning to hurt from a combination of the heat and a lack of water and as she trumped through the trees she prayed that she might stumble across a stream to restock her supply. Maybe she could catch some fish. Not that she_ knew  _how to do that without an actual pole and bait from a tackle shop._

_Pulling her backpack off her shoulders she crouched down and unzipped the large pocket. There was only a few sips left in her water bottle and she sighed heavily before downing it. It did little to quench her thirst._

_She wiped the sweat from her brow and glanced at the woods around her, never feeling more alone._

_A voice suddenly broke the almost peaceful silence from behind her. "Let me see your hands."_

Oh god. Oh god.  _She thought to herself as she dropped the empty bottle back into her pack and slowly raised her hands above her head. This couldn't be good._

_The leaves on the ground rustled as the newcomer came into view with a shotgun pointed directly at her face. He looked to be in his mid-to-late forties with salt-and-pepper hair that had been buzzed off but now appeared to be growing back. His eyes were the color of amber, his face didn't look particularly mean; he looked like someone who was just trying to survive, just like her._

" _What's your name?" He asked, gaze and gun unwavering._

" _Thea." She responded quickly, her heart pounded in her chest and her hands began to shake._

_He stopped once he was directly in front of her. "Are you alone or is your boyfriend gonna come back and shoot me?"_

_The gun in her face kept her from lying. "I'm alone…"_

_The man studied her for several long moments before nodding. The gesture wasn't at her, instead his gaze had moved above her head and she realized that he must have a friend with him._

_She was outnumbered._

_A woman came into view and Thea had to suppress her gasp at her appearance. She appeared to be about seven months pregnant._

" _You can understand why we have to be cautious." The man commented as he noticed her stare._

_Thea did understand. When she had been with her sister and nephew she would have done the same thing this man was doing to protect them. She didn't blame him for protecting his family. Wished she could have done the same for hers._

" _You got any food?" The woman asked in a thick southern accent, a look of desperation in her eyes._

_She had a few sticks of jerky in her pack and while she didn't want to give all of them to the couple, the doctor in her refused to let the expecting mother starve. She nodded once and slowly lowered her hands to dig into the pocket of her bag. Producing two sticks of jerky she held them out to the two in front of her and hoped that would be the end of it._

_The pregnant woman looked ravenous at the sight of food and took one of the sticks, quickly biting a huge chunk of it and chewing loudly. The man was slower to take the other stick, but he didn't eat it and instead offered it to the woman._

" _What's your name?" Thea asked boldly._

_For a second it didn't appear that he would answer her. "Frank. This is Deborah."_

_Deborah was finished with the first stick now and took the second from Frank more calmly. She didn't bite into it yet. "This is Robert. Namin' him after my daddy." She said, rubbing her stomach proudly._

_Thea smiled softly and felt her tense muscles ease. They seemed like nice people. The kind of people that you wanted to be with at the end of the world. Did they want company or were they simply here to steal her food? She guessed that she would find out soon enough._

_Frank lowered his shotgun slowly, seeming a bit sheepish at the realization that he still had it pointed in her direction._

_She rose slowly to her feet and slipped her bag back on her back. "I had a friend named Robert. A co-worker. He was really nice." It wasn't needed information, but maybe sharing something so trivial would gain their trust. Maybe they would like the rapport enough to let her tag along._

_Deborah brightened at the small talk. She must have missed it. "Where did you work? Pretty thing like you, you were probably someone important."_

_Thea didn't know how to take the comment so she simply smiled. "Yancey Memorial Hospital. In Richmond."_

_Frank let out a whistle. "You're a long ways from Richmond, ain't you?"_

" _I was visiting my sister here when everything_ happened _."_

" _You a doctor or a nurse?" Deborah wondered._

_There was hope in her gaze and her hand was resting over her belly, almost as if she were anxiously awaiting the answer to her prayers._

" _Doctor…surgeon…" She answered vaguely, not wanting to go into detail about the fact that she had_ only just  _passed her boards and begun her residency._

_Deborah's baby blue eyes brightened and she faced Frank with a hopeful expression. "You hear that, Frank? A real doctor right here in front of us!"_

" _I heard her, Deb, just calm down." Frank hushed her, not wanting to make a scene. His gaze turned back to Thea and he sighed heavily. "Look, I know we just met but we only got a couple o' months left and I don't know the slightest about birthing a baby. You're alone, you want to come with us?"_

_Thea found herself trying to hide the excitement that bubbled up in her. The thought of not having to rely solely on her survival ability, which was sadly minimal, put her at ease just a little too much. People were rare these days, good people even more so. She couldn't pass up on an opportunity like this, even if they only wanted her for her medical expertise._

" _You know, that sounds like a good idea to me."_

* * *

She had been up for a few minutes when an alarm clock blared below and disrupted her thoughts. She knew it was Rick's alarm to wake up Carl for chores, and she sighed heavily as she grew more anxious. Karen had stormed into her bunk last night and demanded that she talk to Rick about the attack like she had promised.

" _Your story about hurting yourself on the run isn't going to hold up for long, you know. Eventually the truth will come out…wouldn't you rather it happen on your own accord?"_ She had all but hissed in the Brit's face before leaving.

She was right. If the survivors had to find out about the assault then she wanted it to be directly from her and not from anyone else. She wasn't sure if Karen had been threatening to tell The Council herself or if she had merely implied that someone would figure it out and tell, but either way she couldn't risk it. This was her responsibility.

She rose from her bunk gingerly her back popping unnaturally and she stood in front of the mirror for a second to flatten her hair back down a bit with her hands. Her ribs were still wrapped so she simply slipped her shoes back on and headed down to the lower level of the cell block.

By the time she got down there Rick was already gone, she could see Beth bouncing Judith on her hip down at the other end of the block and she sent her a friendly smile before heading towards the exit to the courtyard.

It was already very sunny out and she squinted into the light and moved across the old court. Carol was setting up the fire pit to cook breakfast and barely acknowledged her, something that had started after Thea's outburst about Daryl in this very courtyard that night Rick had confronted her. Thea wasn't particularly upset about the silent treatment.

Following the dirt path down towards the pigsty where father and son were feeding the swine she spotted Michonne leaving on horseback for yet another run. Where she went on these individual runs Thea wasn't sure, but the woman always returned a little more disheartened and it made the doctor curious.

"Mornin'." Rick called to her, dragging her attention back to the present. "How are you feeling?"

She tucked her hair behind her ear and shrugged. "I've been better," She paused as she watched Carl kick at a clump of mud and then finally mustered up the courage to set into motion the conversation that should have happened days ago. "I was hoping I could talk to you in private."

Both of the Grimes men turned their gazes her way curiously and she was struck with how similar they looked from the dark hair to the bright blue eyes. Finally Rick gave her a nod as he fished into the bucket he held for more of whatever he was feeding the pigs.

"Give me a minute?" he offered.

She didn't want to wait, wanted to get it over with like ripping off a band-aid, but she nodded anyway. "Yeah, no problem."

Stepping away to stand in the shade of the horse's stable, she crossed her arms over her chest and tried her best to act patient. When she heard the conversation between father and son resume she grew even more restless. When Carl asked Rick when he could have his gun back, she pretended to be interested in the crow that was pecking at the ground nearby.

"Worms will give'em some extra protein—"

A series of booms from within the prison interrupted Rick's sentence and Thea snapped her gaze from the crow. Those had been gunshots.

Rick was coming from the pen now with Carl following and he ushered her behind him too. "Stay close." He said in a low voice as Carl closed the pen up.

The door to Cell Block D burst open then and two little blonde girls, she knew them to be Lizzie and Mika, came running full speed into the courtyard. They were screaming for help.

Carol dropped the bowls she held and ran to their aid as Maggie called down from the guard tower.

"Cell blocks?" She asked Rick.

"I don't know!" The sheriff exclaimed before turning to his son and the doctor. "Get in the tower with Maggie. Don't argue, go!"

Thea wanted to argue, oh did she want to argue, but she knew if she didn't make sure Carl got to safety then Rick would probably never speak to her again. As the sheriff ran up towards the prison she ushered Carl ahead of her towards the guard tower Maggie was in.

She could hear shouting behind her as survivors from C-Block spilled out into the open with weapons. She heard Glenn shout about walkers in D-Block and her heart sunk. The majority of the children slept in those cells.  _Karen_ slept in there.

A sharp whistle made her jump in surprise. Michonne was coming back on the horse and needed the gate open, Carl raced towards the gate to let her in and Thea followed as quickly as she could with her side protesting. As the young boy used his whole body to pull the rope that opened the makeshift gate, Michonne rode through and jumped down from the horse. Thea moved to grab the reins from her since she was more capable of running up into the prison than her and led the horse up the path.

A shot came from behind and stopped her in her tracks. She turned and peered over the horse's back in time to see Maggie helping Michonne to her feet and Carl holding one of the rifles they kept in the guard tower. The dark-skinned woman was limping as the other woman helped her move out of the way for Carl to pull the fence closed.

Dropping the reins Thea made her way back to the little group, her brow furrowed. "Your ankle?" She wasn't sure if it was the ankle of the knee that was bothering the katana wielder.

Michonne nodded, her face a mixture of pain and aggravation. She looked like she needed to see what was going on in the prison, not be injured herself. Thea realized that she felt the same.

Glancing around at the walkers that had gathered by the main fence having been attracted by the commotion they had caused, she sighed tiredly. The day had only just begun and yet here she was already feeling exhausted. She needed to get out of bed more.

"Let me take a look back up at the prison. We've attracted a few friends down here." She commented, indicating the dead that growled at them as if the others couldn't hear it themselves.

Maggie and Carl each took one of Michonne's arms to help her up the driveway and Thea trailed behind, one hand on her side as she glanced back to check that the horse had made it back into the main yard. It was grazing on some grass by the pig pen and she turned her attention back to the others in front of her.

Just as they were entering the courtyard she spotted Rick coming from D-Block. He looked more exhausted than she felt and she could see blood splattered on his skin and clothing.

Carl dropped Michonne's arm to run to his father—

"Hey, you might want to stay back. Carl."

-and despite the protesting from the sheriff the boy hugged him hard.

"Dad, I'm sorry. I didn't see you come out." The boy's voice was muffled but Thea could tell he was upset.

Rick hugged him briefly but then held him at an arm's length. "It's okay. I'm here. I'm fine. But back away."

The boy listened and moved backwards towards the three women, but he didn't move far from his father. "I had to use one of the guns by the gate. I swear I didn't want to." He sounded like he was begging his father to forgive him.

Thea wondered what the deal was with Rick and Carl and guns.

Michonne spoke up for the kid before Rick could say a word. "I was coming back, I fell. They came back and helped me."

The sheriff's eyes were on hers for a second before he noticed the way Maggie was supporting her. "You alright?" he asked, genuine concern on his face and in his voice. The only response he got was a nod.

"What happened in there?" Maggie finally asked the question Thea had been waiting to ask.

Before a word could be said a young blonde woman came from the cell block with tears streaking down her cheeks. She was cradling a small body wrapped in a white sheet. Blood stained the cloth.

Thea's eyes widened for a moment before she dropped her gaze to the ground. She didn't know if it was out of respect or sorrow; both were good answers.

As the blonde disappeared down into the prison yard, Rick began to explain the events that had transpired.

"Patrick got sick last night. It's some kind of flu. It moves fast. We think he died and attacked the cell block." He began. He turned to Carl. "Look, I know he was your friend and I'm sorry. He was a good kid. We lost a lot of good people." His next words were directed at Maggie. "Glenn and your dad are okay, but they were in there. You shouldn't get too close to anyone that might have been exposed, at least for a little while."

At those words Carl backed up further and then turned to run back to Michonne's side, wrapping her arm around his shoulder in support once more.

Thea frowned hard. A flu? How had it started? She had spent plenty of time in the ER taking care of patients who had a strand of the flu virus, but every year the sickness mutated into a stronger and different version. This one sounded like it had done just that.

"Carl, all of you." Rick was still speaking. "Thea you're the only one with medical experience who wasn't exposed so you should take extra care. We'll need you for Judith and the others."

She nodded in agreement, and felt a weight drop on her chest at the newfound responsibility.

Suddenly a stab of fear made her chest ache and she looked to Rick desperately. "K-Karen, she's in D-Block! Is she…?" she couldn't say the word but the sheriff seemed to understand what she was asking.

"She's alive," He reassured her with a shake of his head. "She managed to get a majority of the children into her cell to keep them safe."

The second part wasn't needed but she was grateful for the information. She knew Karen wouldn't have let anything happen to the kids and would have probably died for them if it had come to that. That was just the kind of person her friend was.

As Carl and Maggie led Michonne into C-Block she glanced back towards the grieving mother before she began to follow. It wasn't until the others were inside and she was just about to go through the iron tunnel that led to the door that Rick spoke again, calling her name softly.

She faced him slowly and raised an eyebrow in response.

"That thing you wanted to talk about?"

She had completely forgotten and now the idea of laying yet another burden on the man who was clearly overloaded seemed frugal. So she shrugged. "It's not important." She lied.

He saw right through it. Tilted his head at her in challenge.

"It is important," she finally admitted. "But it can wait."

She didn't give him a chance to respond to her before turning to walk into the cell block. This is why her mother told her never to procrastinate when it came to matters of importance.

Sometimes life got in the way. Or death.

* * *

Sometime later Thea was rummaging through the box of medical supplies that had been placed in the communal area in cell block C. Michonne's ankle was only sprained, but despite the woman's protests Thea wanted to get at least some kind of mild pain killer in her; ibuprofen was good for pain  _and_ swelling so finding that would be ideal. She wasn't having much luck though.

The box was filled with band-aids and gauze and even some vitamins, but they were running extremely low on pain meds. She managed to find a bottle of Tylenol but when she popped open the cap there were only two capsules left inside. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, eyes falling shut and head bowing. It had been a long day and the day wasn't close to being finished yet.

"You should take those for your ribs."

She snapped her head up and found Tyreese standing nearby, a bouquet of wild flowers in one hand. She smiled a tiredly in his direction and replaced the cap on the bottle.

"Michonne needs them for her ankle. I'm fine." She said. After a moment she motioned to the flowers. "Got a date?"

He looked down and chuckled, nodded his head twice. "Thought maybe a little color would make Karen feel better about being locked in solitary."

Karen had been sequestered from the others, along with David from the Decatur group, after exhibiting signs of illness. So far the dark haired woman was just coughing, but Thea knew from experience how the flu could turn on the drop of a dime.

"Do you mind if I come with you? I want to check on her and David."

Ty cocked his head at her, a small smirk slipping across his face. "Aren't you supposed to be steering clear of any sick people?"

Placing the Tylenol on the table she scoffed at him. "Please, I'm a doctor. You try and keep me from sick patients and  _you'll_ be the one with broken ribs."

They shared a laugh but the man didn't protest any further as they moved into the tombs. She was glad that his relationship with Karen had caused the two of them to become friends as well, she didn't have many people here at the prison that she actually trusted with her life.

The walk to the area of the prison where the solitary confinement cells were was a silent one, but it wasn't uncomfortable. Thea found that she liked the silence more than any small talk that could have transpired; neither one of them were talkative people anymore, the world had changed them just a little too much for that part of their personality to stay prominent.

When they got to the cells Tyreese took the lead and a large grin spread on his face as he moved to peer into the small window on the door of the cell that housed Karen. Just as Thea was about to check on David she saw Ty's face fall.

"What is it?" She asked, her heart beginning to race in fear. Had Karen succumbed to her illness?

She received no response and instead he stepped back to look down at the floor. When she followed his gaze her stomach dropped and a gasp escaped her lips.

Blood smeared from underneath the cell door and trailed down the hallway before disappearing around the corner. A similar trail was coming from David's cell and she placed a hand gingerly over her mouth in shock and followed after Tyreese as he began to follow the blood trail. It went down the next hall and out through a lone door at the end.

Sunlight flooded in as Ty pushed open the door and she was suddenly hit smack in the face with a stench she couldn't quite place. It was something akin to burnt meat, like someone had overcooked a pork chop to the point of ruining it. It had her scrunching her nose in disgust.

But then the stench was forgotten as Tyreese came to a halt in front of her and she had to work to avoid hitting him. When she moved around him to see what had caught his attention she wished that she had never come down here.

"Oh god." She gasped, her eyes welling up instantly.

On the concrete before her lay two bodies charred black. Smoke was still rising off their corpses and she could see patches of pink flesh that hadn't burnt completely.

The body closest to her was male. David.

And the other one…the other one was very obviously Karen


	9. Savages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Chapter nine and it's the longest chapter yet! This chapter is THREE episodes! Plus we get revenge on Hoyt!
> 
> Episodes 4x03, 4x04, & part of 4x05, enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

Her knees hit the pavement hard as her legs crumpled beneath her and her hands flew to cover her mouth. She could hear Tyreese breathing hard as he stared at the burnt bodies but she couldn't bring herself to look up at him. Her mind was reeling.

Who had done this? Did they find Karen and David already dead and simply try to dispose of the bodies? Or did they  _kill them in cold blood_?

Her blood boiled at the thought of the woman she had come to consider her best friend being killed brutally and then burned to a crisp.

Suddenly all the training, all the times she saw the _insides_ of living human beings, all those cadavers in medical school, the vile and disgusting things she'd had to deal with as an intern…all of that didn't matter anymore. She felt bile rising in her throat and had to scramble to her feet and move to the corner of the mini courtyard farthest from the bodies to empty her stomach.

"Oh,  _God_." She groaned, wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her shirt.

When she turned back around, one hand holding her stomach, it was just in time to see Tyreese storming back into the prison. She watched him go before her gaze turned back to Karen, or what had  _been_ Karen. She took in a long, ragged breath and then when she exhaled a whimper came out. Bowing her head, she lifted a hand to cover her eyes as tears slipped down her face.

_Oh, god, Karen._

"This way." Tyreese's angry voice came from the tunnels suddenly. He was leading someone here.

"Is that blood?" a woman's voice asked, Thea thought it might have been Carol but she hadn't spoken with the woman enough to be able to recognize her voice.

There was no response and Thea raised her head in time to see Tyreese returning with Rick, Carol, and  _Daryl._ The last of the three eyed her as he came into the outer area and she lifted shaking hands to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

Rick spoke in a low, gruff tone. "What the hell is this?"

Ty didn't respond. He was staring angrily at the bodies again, breathing hard enough that his shoulders were rising and falling in ferocious rhythm.

Thea cleared her throat and spoke in a quiet voice. "Karen and David." She didn't know what else to say, didn't know how to explain this.

Rick's eyes fell to her and then back to Tyreese. "You found them like this?" he asked.

The furious man before them turned to glance back at the sheriff.

"We came to see Karen…and I saw the blood on the floor." He began. "Then I smelled them."

Thea's stomach lurched again but thankfully she kept down what little was left of what she had eaten for lunch.

"Somebody dragged them out here and set'em on fire! They killed them and set'em on fire!" Ty's voice pierced the air harshly and echoed off the concrete around them.

He turned and stepped close to Rick, the two of them were almost touching and Daryl had moved to stand behind Tyreese at the ready, as if he were going to be able to pull the much larger man away.

"You're a cop," Ty stated. "You find out who did this and you bring'em to me. You understand? You bring'em to  _me!_ "

Daryl reached out to grab the black man's arm. "We'll find out who—"

He was cut off by the arm he held being jerked away roughly.

"—I need to say it again?"

This time it was Rick who spoke as he shook his head. "No. No. I know what you're feeling. I've been there. You saw me there. It's dangerous."

Tyreese faced the sheriff again. "Karen didn't deserve this!"

No, she didn't. Of all the people in this prison Karen might have been one of the only people who had never done anything to anyone. She didn't deserve to die this way.

Rick agreed with one word: "No."

"David didn't deserve it.  _Nobody_ does." Ty added.

Well…Thea could think of  _one_ man who deserved something at least similar to this.

"All right, man, let's—"

As Daryl's hand connected with Tyreese's shoulder the latter spun around and gripped the front of the former's shirt, shoving him backwards until he could slam him against the iron bars that led to another courtyard.

Thea had never seen Tyreese this angry.

"Man, I ain't going nowhere till I find out who did this!"

"We're on the same side, man." Daryl said slowly, his hands up over Ty's shoulders to keep Rick and Carol from trying to pull the angry man off.

Thea didn't move a muscle as she stared at the two in the altercation. She didn't think Tyreese would be dumb enough to try and hurt Daryl with Rick standing right there, but then again she hadn't seen him this furious before so maybe she was wrong.

Rick stepped close to Ty's back. "Hey, look, I know what you're going through. We've all lost someone. We know what you're going through right now, but you've got to calm down."

As he patted Tyreese's shoulder Thea couldn't help but think that they should probably stop touching him without warning because he immediately whipped around and pushed hard against the sheriff's chest.

"You need to step the hell back!"

"She wouldn't want you to be like this."

That was evidently the wrong thing to say. As soon as the words left Rick's mouth Ty reared back his arm and punched Rick right across the jaw, knocking the man to his knees.

Carol screamed out dramatically and moved to the fallen man's side. "Stop! Stop!" She screamed again as a second punch landed on the smaller man's face and resulted in a crack that had even Thea cringing.

Daryl came forward and jumped onto Ty's back to try and get him away from Rick. Tyreese was breathing hard and loud, Rick spit blood on the concrete, and Carol was near hysterics.

The last part…Thea felt it was a little forced.

"That's enough." Daryl grumbled twice.

For a second it seemed as if things would calm down. Thea started towards Rick to see how bad his face was, but then he stood suddenly and swung his fist so hard into the black man's face that Daryl's grip on him broke and he fell to the ground like Rick had been moments before.

The sheriff's face had morphed into something she had never seen before and he kicked his leg hard striking Ty in the ribs hard enough to flip him on his back.

Thea's side ached suddenly at the memory of the same thing happening to her not too long ago. She gripped her ribs and grimaced.

Rick stood over her friend and began to punch him repeatedly. She almost moved to stop him. Daryl beat her to it.

The hunter grabbed Rick by the shoulders and tried to pull him away. "Rick, stop it!" he growled as he tugged.

"Let go of me!" Rick was erratic, wild.

Thea was suddenly scared of the man she saw. She backed away until her back pressed against the far wall.

"Let go of me!"

After much struggle Daryl was finally able to get Rick away from Tyreese, who was laying on the ground whimpering. He was crying, one eye swollen shut and blood covering his face. Carol had her hands over her mouth in shock. Thea shook fearfully against the wall, the outburst having brought back flashes of that fateful night in the library.

Her gaze traveled from the man on the ground to his attacker and she saw him holding his wrist gingerly, his knuckles bloody and hand shaking. He'd hit Ty pretty hard, it wouldn't be a surprise if his wrist was at the very least sprained.

And then there was the expression on Rick's face. He seemed almost…dazed. As if he had become an entirely different person when he was attacking Tyreese, and now he was realizing what that other person had done. It was just as alarming as the brawl had been.

No one moved for what seemed like forever, but then finally Thea pushed herself off the wall to go to Tyreese's side. Tucking her hair behind both ears, she hovered over him and reached a hand out to grasp his shoulder gently.

"I need to check and make sure nothing is broken." She told him as he jumped and cracked his good eye open.

He stood abruptly, faster than she thought would have been possible, and stormed away without a word, disappearing inside the prison.

The doctor moved to follow, stopping only to speak to Rick in a low voice. "If I were you I'd have Herschel take a look at that wrist."

Her gaze flickered to the charred bodies as she walked passed Daryl. "Maybe you can use those super-sleuthing skills to figure out who the  _murderer_ shacking up with us is?" she grumbled to him.

And then she was once again following Tyreese into the tombs.

* * *

Tyreese had refused to let her take a look at his face until after Karen and David were buried. And then he had refused to let her help him dig the graves because of her ribs. So she had been forced back into the cell block to rest on his orders.

" _You're hurt. You need to give yourself time to heal. And I know how much Karen meant to you."_

He had made it incredibly hard to argue with him.

And then once the bodies had been put in the ground he had still refused to be helped. He had even left with Daryl, Michonne, and Bob to go to a veterinary college that was more than 50 miles away in order to get the meds necessary to the survival of all those sick. Against her demands as a doctor that he needed to be looked at.

Sighing heavily, she sat at one of the tables in the common area and buried her face in her hands. She was trying not to cry. She was done crying. She should be packing her things. They were moving all of those considered vulnerable to the administration building to prevent them from getting sick. Since she was the only doctor who hadn't had contact with an ill person, she was being sequestered too.

It frustrated her more.

"Are you okay?" a small voice asked.

Thea lifted her head to find the youngest member of the Greene family standing by the table with the youngest member of the Grimes family on her hip. By now everyone knew that someone had killed Karen and David, and it was pretty common knowledge that the doctor had been very close to the former. Beth's concern seemed genuine and Thea suddenly felt a pang of guilt over not ever making an effort to talk to the girl.

"If I said I was fine I'd be lying." Thea responded softly, folding her hands together on top of the table.

Beth sat beside her and thrust Judith in her direction without a word.

"I-what?" Thea stuttered in confusion. She didn't move to take the baby.

Judith fussed at being held under her arms too long but Beth didn't take her back. "Holding a baby helps. It helped Michonne when she was upset about the people Patrick killed." She paused and then in a whisper she added with a pointed look: "It helped Maggie when the Governor hurt her. When he almost raped her."

Thea flinched visibly, and then her eyes widened. How did Beth know? Had Maggie told her? Who else had Maggie told?

"How did you-?"

"—I pay attention. Everyone thinks I'm quiet, that I'm just the babysitter, but I pay attention."

That was all the explanation she gave and she still held Judith out to her. The baby kicked her legs and scrunched her face up as she whined, and Thea reached out to take her from the blonde before she could start wailing.

The baby seemed to not mind being in the arms of someone who had never held her before, she reached out and grabbed a handful of the hair at the base of Thea's head, staring at the Brit curiously.

Thea held her close and stared back into those innocent eyes. Eyes that had never seen any of the horrors that surrounded them all. She wanted to cry thinking about how one day those brown eyes would be full of fear. The trust that came so easily for her would be diminished. Her outlook on life would be tainted from the moment she could really comprehend what was going on.

"I won't tell anyone, you know." Beth spoke suddenly. "But I think  _you_ should."

Thea turned her gaze back to the younger girl and exhaled slowly. "It's not that easy."

"But it can be. You know it can be."

They stared at each other for a long moment and Thea began to wonder if she was right. Was it only hard because she was making it that way?

Judith began to fuss and Beth stood, taking her from Thea's arms. There was a moment when Judith held tight on the hair she'd wrapped her fist around, but Beth simply reached back and pulled her hand away.

"You should talk to Carol. She's on the Council, she can help." The girl stated before walking away, soothing Judith with a hummed tune.

Thea wasn't sure if she  _could_ talk to Carol. The woman wasn't exactly a fan of the doctor; would she take the time to listen or blow her off? She would have to find out.

Standing she made her way out to the courtyard to see if she could find the shorter haired woman. There was no one in sight, but as she got closer to the fence she saw Carol pumping water into a bucket down by the far fences.

She decided to wait for her to come back up to the courtyard, she didn't want to stress her ribs after all, and turned to make her way to the covered tables nearby. She stopped short when she saw Rick making his way from D-block. His head was down but she could tell by the tension in his shoulders that he was not in a good mood.

He hadn't spotted her yet and so she ducked down behind the counter where Carol cooked the meals, sitting and hoping he wouldn't see her as he passed by.

She didn't want to risk the small talk. Didn't want it to lead to him questioning her about the thing she had meant to talk to him about prior to the outbreak in cell block D.

She sat there for a while but he never came by and she wondered where he had went.

A moment later she heard the main gate open and close, Carol was walking in with a bucket of water in each hand. She was headed for the large blue, plastic barrels they kept the water in and Thea almost stood to call out to her.  _Almost._

"That was a stupid thing you did. Going out there like that." Rick spoke up from where he had been waiting on one of the landings higher up than the courtyard.

Peeking over the counter Thea watched the interaction curiously.

"Yes, it was." Carol was agreeing.

Rick came down the concrete stairs and walked close to the older woman. Thea didn't fail to notice how his left hand rested, almost casually but still threateningly, on his holstered gun.

"You know, you do a lot for us, for the kids." He continued. "You sacrifice a lot." There was a long pause as they stared at each other. "Is there anything you  _wouldn't_ do for the people here?"

Carol didn't hesitate to answer, shaking her head. "No."

When Rick's only response was a nod, the woman turned to continue towards the blue barrels. Thea felt something was off about this whole thing.

"Carol…" The sheriff called out slowly. He was bowing his head, almost like he didn't want to have this conversation.

The woman stopped and turned back to look at him. She didn't look fond of the situation either.

"Did you kill Karen and David?"

Thea felt shock shoot through her as she heard the question. She turned her attention to the other woman in anticipation for her answer, her heart pounding in her chest and her breathing heavy.

The answer came with only the slightest bit of hesitation, but was spoken so calmly. "Yes."

That was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Thea gasped as Carol strolled away from Rick, and she stood abruptly, knocking a bowl off the counter.

Both Rick and Carol were looking at her now, Rick's eyes shocked that she had heard…Carol looked almost worried.

Without a word Thea moved forward quickly, cutting across the courtyard and towards the woman who still held the two buckets of water. As she closed in she reared her arm back, and then her fist connected hard with Carol's jaw.

The woman stumbled backwards a few feet with a surprised shout but stayed standing, the pails of water dropping from her grasp and somehow managing to land upright, only spilling a few drops.

She pulled her arm back to hit the woman again, anger coursing through her veins and causing her blood to boil. Before she could swing again, however, strong arms wrapped around her from behind and pulled her away from Carol, lifting her off the ground in the process.

She cried out in pain as the arms squeezed her ribs and kicked her legs in an attempt to get Rick to drop her, but instead he carried her across the courtyard as if she weighed nothing. She saw Carol pick up the buckets again and vanish out of sight quickly, and Thea couldn't help but growl out loud in frustration.

Rick finally deposited her with a  _thunk_ on the metal bleachers and stood before her, his hands on his hips. He looked just as angry as she felt, she wasn't sure if it was directed at her or not.

"You get to pummel Tyreese for stepping out of line, but Carol  _murders_ my best friend and you stop me after one punch?" She exclaimed.

" _Ssshh!_ Keep your voice down!" Rick growled in a low voice, stepping close to her. "We need to be smart about this."

"Smart-" he hushed her again and she spoke quieter. "What do you mean by  _smart_? You're a cop, we should lock her up in one of the cells.  _Punish_ her."

He shook his head and held out one hand. His face meant business. "Things aren't the same. We can't just arrest her. You just punched her in the face, do you think Tyreese will react any better when he gets back and finds out?"

He was right. Ty was a good man, a kind one, but he had a temper. He had flipped out on the sheriff when he'd discovered Karen was dead…he probably would react worse if he found out who the killer was. He might try to kill her.

As much as she was hating Carol in this moment, she didn't want her to end up dead. Especially in a violent manner.

Thea exhaled softly and as she calmed down her hand began to throb. She had hit Carol as hard as she could and looking down now she could see that the skin on her knuckles was split open and bleeding. It had been a really long time since she'd punched someone, a surgeon's hands were valuable after all, but she wasn't regretting it.

"So what's the plan then, Sheriff?"

Rick placed a hand on his holstered colt revolver, the other hand rubbed his eyes for a moment before he pinched the bridge of his nose in thought.

"I don't know." He said finally. "But  _I_ will figure it out before the others return. Think you can keep from attacking Carol until then?"

She let out a very unladylike snort and stood and moved to stand in front of him. Her ribs throbbed from how roughly he had grabbed her. "I think I can handle that. Especially since you've all made the decision to send me to the admin building with the children."

"That's just a precaution. We don't want to lose all our doctors to this thing."

She stared up at him for a long moment, almost challengingly, but then she finally nodded. "Yeah, I get it. Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

Rick glanced over her shoulder and she turned to see Carl approaching slowly. He was eyeing them with an unreadable expression on his face, and Thea realized then how close she was standing to his father. She didn't want him to get the wrong idea, so she stepped back a little and turned back to the sheriff.

"At least let me know what you decide, okay?" she asked quietly.

He nodded once and she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to walk back into C-Block, offering a small smile to Carl as she passed him.

* * *

She had packed up a few of her things and moved into one of the offices in the administration building. The room she chose had a large desk and a futon that smelled a little funny, but it was better than sleeping on the floor. That night she tossed and turned and dreamt of Karen and David screaming as they burned in endless flames.

The next morning she woke up feeling more tired than she was when she went to sleep. She stretched and groaned as her joints popped.

She slipped from the office and walked silently down the hallway towards the door that would lead her back into the courtyard. She may be forced to sleep here for a while but she refused to sit on her ass all day.

"Where are you going?"

Turning, she found Carl watching her, a gun in one hand and his hat perched on top of his head. Did he think he was in charge here?

"Out. I'm not going to sit here all day and do nothing." She told him.

"We're supposed to stay here."

"Yeah? And what are you going to do if I don't? Shoot me?"

He hesitated to respond and she smiled slowly at him. "Look kid, I don't want to sit around. I'm just going to walk the courtyard for a bit, don't worry."

Thea didn't give him a chance to respond before she made her exit. She squinted into the morning light and headed towards the covered picnic tables slowly. As she neared them she noticed Rick by the green Hyundai. He was putting gas in the tank and the back end was open and full of supplies.

"Going somewhere?" She asked as she approached.

She looked into the back of the car to see what he had placed inside. There seemed to be more supplies than necessary for a run and she wondered if he was planning on leaving for good or something.

"Carol and I are going to check out a housing development not far from here. Hopefully we can find some prescription meds or anything else that could help with the sick." He explained, placing the now empty gas container in the back of the car.

"You and Carol, huh?" She raised an eyebrow at him questioningly.

A nod came in response and then he sighed and glanced around as if to make sure no one was watching or listening. "I'm gonna talk to her. See where we stand and make a decision."

That made sense to her; they needed to be smart about this and not make any rash decisions. Glancing into the trunk again she realized that he might in fact be banishing Carol today. She was surprised to find that she didn't have a problem with that.

"Hey, we never got to talk," Rick said suddenly, referring to the conversation she had been avoiding yesterday when she'd overheard Carol's confession.

Thea shook her head and tried not to look uncomfortable by the reminder. "Now's not the time."

"You came to me for a reason, Thea, and I think it's because you know I was a cop. Did you need to…report something or…?"

His hand had reached out to grasp her shoulder in what would have probably been a comforting gesture, but she flinched away involuntarily and he froze.

Her eyes widened and met his, where she saw both confusion and worry. Both emotions were genuine. And then she saw something click in his head like he had put it together and she felt her heartbeat falter.

She didn't want to have this conversation now. Not only was Karen gone, the one person she could count on for moral support, but Rick was in the middle of making a very important decision. "You've got a lot on your plate right now, Rick."

He shook his head. "This is just as important. You're one of us now. Family." He insisted.

She could have cried right then and there at that revelation, but she held it in. "Okay, I'll tell you.  _After_ you get back from this run. You don't need any distractions."

He seemed to realize that was the best he would get, and so he simply nodded and reached out to shut the back end of the Hyundai. The door leading to D-Block opened and Carol started towards them, her steps slowing when she saw Thea standing there.

The doctor eyed her for a moment before facing Rick again. "Just…be careful, okay?"

"I will."

Thea turned and walked back towards the administration building. As she passed Carol she hoped that it wouldn't be a mistake to let Rick go alone with her. She was starting to see the former sheriff as a friend, she didn't want to lose another one of those.

As she passed by A-Block, where the sick were being kept, she debated whether or not she should go inside and see how things were going. That would have displeased Rick and the others since she was supposed to be steering clear of that section of the prison, but she didn't really like being told what she  _couldn't_ do.

She couldn't go in there now though, she had to wait until Rick and Carol had left. So she returned to the admin building to wait it out.

* * *

She had ended up falling asleep on the smelly futon and didn't wake up until three and a half hours had passed. She grew frustrated thinking that Rick and Carol could have already returned and she didn't know it yet.

She found Carl throwing a ball against a wall near the office Judith and Beth were in. He looked bored out of his mind and she didn't blame him, she didn't want to sit here either.

"Hey, did your dad make it back yet?" She tried to ask casually.

The boy in the hat turned his gaze her way and looked at her for a long moment before responding. "Not yet."

That had Thea feeling concerned. The housing development Rick had mentioned wasn't too far away, it shouldn't have taken them long to go and search houses and come back. Unless they ran into trouble. Unless  _Rick_ ran into trouble.

"Are you guys…together?" Carl asked suddenly, surprising the hell out of her.

"Excuse me?" she asked. Where had he even gotten that idea?

"My dad. Is there something going on with you and him?"

"No!" She insisted. "Why would you think that?"

Carl shrugged one shoulder and started tossing the ball again as if he hadn't just insinuated that she was sleeping with Rick Grimes.

" _Carl_ ," she spoke firmly. "Why do you think your father and I are…together?"

The boy was silent for a full minute as she stared a hole in his hat. Then finally he stood and faced her. "I saw you guys talking yesterday. And this morning. And my mom is gone so it's only a matter of time until he tries to replace her."

There was hurt in his voice and she felt guilty even though nothing had or ever would happen with her and Rick. She didn't mean to give anyone the impression that she and Rick were an item, and she never wanted Carl to feel like she was trying to swoop in and hijack his family.

She bent slightly at the waist to look him directly in the eyes. "Carl, I promise you that your father and I are just friends. And I don't think anyone will ever be able to replace your mother. I've seen how he talks about her; he loved her with all his heart. I don't think those feelings will ever go away."

It was incredibly weird for her to be having this conversation, especially considering she had never really interacted with Carl much, but he clearly needed it and she wasn't about to let him think that she or any woman could be a substitute for Lori Grimes. The relationship between mother and child was unbreakable, at least that is how Cat had always described it.

"Do you understand that?" she asked softly, reaching out to lift his chin so she could look him right in the eyes. Blue eyes he shared with his father.

He nodded slowly and she dropped her hand. She wasn't sure if he really got what she was saying or if he just wanted her to go away, but she was glad that she had tried to comfort him in some way.

Still, she needed to get into A-Block soon or else she'd never get the chance.

"Okay, I'm going to go check and see if Herschel needs any help—"

"—You're supposed to stay away from there—"

"—I'm not just going to sit around while there are sick people. I'm a doctor, I  _have_ to help."

She flicked the brim of his hat playfully and was glad to hear him chuckle as he righted it. Maybe she had helped him a little bit. Turning, she made towards the exit without a word. Thankfully when she made it outside there still wasn't a sign of the green Hyundai and so she snuck towards death row.

When she got inside she was greeted by the sound of people hacking up their lungs so violently that she could hear it even through the closed door. She pulled the handle and the door opened with a loud clank that had her cringing, and before she had even closed it behind her Herschel stepped out of one of the cells.

He made his way over to her, a slight limp in his gait as he put pressure on his prosthetic leg. When he was close enough to her he spoke in a whisper. "What are you doing in here? You know you're not supposed to come near this cell block."

He didn't sound angry or upset with her, just curious. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? You were told the same thing and yet here you are."

That seemed to stop him from commenting again and he sighed. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a red bandana. "At least put this over your face so you don't breathe in anything."

It would probably be best not to argue since he wasn't kicking her out, so she took the cloth and tied it around the lower half of her face to cover her nose and mouth. She was struck with how similar this was to a surgical mask, and then she felt a pang of sadness at the reminder that she would never get to actually perform a solo surgery in an operating room with a full staff to aid her.

"How many are sick?" she asked as a distraction.

"At least fifteen. Most of them are only in the early stages, but there are a couple who might not last until Daryl and the others get back."

She sighed, that wasn't what she wanted to hear. "Who's got it the worst?"

"Caleb, Janine, Anna, and Hoyt."

Thea had been glancing around at the cells when he spoke the last name and she snapped her attention back to the old man in surprise. She had completely forgotten that Hoyt was one of the inhabitants of D-Block; she had been trying her best to keep him out of her thoughts completely. Now that she knew he was lying in one of these cells dying she wondered if it was bad that she felt a sense of pleasure at the idea of him coughing up blood and suffering.

She was glad that Herschel had made her tie the bandana on, because if he hadn't he might be able to see the smile that was slowly spreading across Thea's face.

* * *

It must have been only an hour later that it happened. She was kneeling beside Anna's bed trying to comfort her in any way possible when she heard the groaning in the next cell over. It sounded like the noises someone made when they were in the kind of excruciating pain that was often followed by loss of consciousness and then death.

She stood and reassured Anna she would return, then slipped out of the cell.

Thea had been avoiding this cell for the past hour, knowing if she went inside the words she would have for its occupant would not be kind. Hoyt was an evil, vile, and repulsive human being but she wasn't sure that he deserved to be treated the way she wanted to treat him when he was dying. Then again, he hadn't taken into account her feelings when he had attacked her in the library.

She was inside the cell now and standing over the man who had caused her so much pain and fear. It was the closest she had been to him since the assault, and even though it had been nearly two months since that night she was shocked to see how drastically he had changed physically.

The illness had wracked his body and altered him to the point that she almost didn't recognize him. But she would never forget that face or those eyes.

Glancing around to make sure no one was watching she swatted away the hand that was reaching out for her, most likely seeking some form of help or comfort. He wouldn't get it from her. Not even as he lay before her dying.

She leaned over him slowly and pulled the bandana down so he could see just who was there. His already abnormally large eyes widened further into saucers and she smirked.

"Hey there, Hoyt." She spoke in a low voice, trying her best to sound menacing. "Are you in pain? Are you afraid?"

His wide eyes were red-rimmed, much like hers had been after he had stolen her sense of safety, and he coughed up some blood as he nodded stiffly.

Thea nodded mockingly. "Yeah? I can tell. Would you like something to help with that?"

He nodded again and she glanced around again. The coast was still clear.

"Well you're not going to get anything." She growled and glared hard at him. "You deserve every second of this and you know it."

It seemed that he could only nod now. He had either lost ability to speak around the blood coming up his throat or was afraid to say anything.

"You don't get to attack me,  _violate_ me, and then ask me to help you." She straightened up but still stood within his eyesight. "Now I'm going to watch you die. And this time  _I'll_  be the one enjoying  _your_ pain."

She moved to the other side of the cell and leaned against the bars with her arms crossed. He was silent for a long few minutes like he was trying to keep it together so she wouldn't get to see him suffering. But finally it was like he couldn't hold it in any longer. A long whimper came from his lips and he began to hack violently.

Blood was already coming from his mouth but now she could see it leaking from his nose and rolling down his cheek. He was close to the end now.

The hacking continued as crimson dripped from his ears first and his forehead glistened with sweat. His hair was soaked and stuck to his head flatly. There was a long moment of coughing where it was obvious he wasn't getting any more oxygen and then the capillaries in his eyes burst sending blood down his face.

Thea would be lying if she said she hadn't been thinking about the many different ways she could get back at Hoyt, but now that she was watching him literally die in front of her she started to feel uneasy. No one deserved to die like this, least of all alone, and she wanted to move to his side to at least hold his hand. But then again no one should ever have to be held down and violently assaulted either, and he had never expressed any form of remorse for what he had done, not like Josh had. He hadn't earned her sympathy. He didn't get the satisfaction of watching her pity him.

She waited until his coughing silenced and then his body stopped tremoring and he lay still. He was gone. She had a thought for a second that he deserved worse but quickly squashed that thought and moved to pull the handkerchief back over her face and leave the cell in order to retrieve the gurney they were taking the dead away on.

"Another one?" Herschel called down from the upper level. He was leaning over the rail to get a good look at her.

She nodded and pointed towards Hoyt's cell, not wanting to verbally announce the death in case any of the survivors still alive heard.

The older man nodded and limped down to the staircase, then came her way to help her with the gurney. When they moved it to the now deceased man's bedside Thea went for his legs and Herschel hoisted his upper body onto the red leather cushions.

"I'll take him." He told her, but she waved him off quickly.

"Nonsense, go back up to Henry, he wasn't sounding too good. I've got this."

"Are you sure?"

She tried not to seem too eager. "Yeah, I got it."

Before he could protest further she pulled the sheet off Hoyts bed and threw it over his body, a courtesy for the other sick people and  _not_  the man himself. Then she grasped the handles on the underside of the bed and began to roll it towards the back room where the prison had carried out executions of the death row inmates. It had glass that would have been used for viewing but she didn't know if anyone knew how to get to the viewing room so she didn't bother pulling the curtain. She closed the door behind her and wheeled Hoyt's body to the far wall where the window was.

Pulling her knife from its sheath on her thigh she whipped the sheet off of him so she could see his face and then gripped her knife tightly. She raised it and positioned it above his head and waited. She wanted him to be awake for this, even if he wouldn't be himself.

She must have stood there for a good five minutes with her knife poised over him before his bug eyes fluttered open. The whites of his eyes were a milky color and bloodshot and the blue color had faded dramatically, now coming off as a sickly grey color.

His lips curled back in a snarl when he saw her, the same snarl that had been on his face when he had jumped her, and she gasped loudly. She hadn't expected him to react to her so much like the way he had when he had been living. She had expected a blank stare.

As he moved to raise his head from the gurney she thrust her knife down quickly and it embedded in his forehead with a squelch. His body fell limp again and that should have been the end of it all, but she couldn't let him go that easily.

Yanking her knife out roughly, she stabbed it into his head again, and again, and again until his upper face became an unrecognizable mess. Then she moved to his chest, thrusting the blade in and out, in and out. She didn't cry even though her eyes were brimming. She simply violated his body similar to how he had violated her entire soul. Over and over again.

A strangled noise came from her throat as her arms grew tired and she let out a sob, still no tears, which shook her entire body in ferociously until she had jabbed her weapon one last time into Hoyt's gut and then stepped back.

As she stared at the dead man and panted, her body slowly shaking, a shadow came into her peripheral vision and she turned her head to find Rick standing on the other side of the window. His face told her he was shocked and his eyes flickered between her and Hoyt questioningly.

There was no way for her to avoid telling him now.


	10. Red Right Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own anything other than Thea Ellis and her storyline. All rights to The Walking Dead remain with Robert Kirkman and Co.

There was a long moment where the two of them stared at each other without moving or speaking. Thea was sure she wasn't breathing as she tried to figure out what Rick was thinking. Could he put it together that Hoyt had been the one to hurt her? Or was he just replaying the scene he had walked in on? Seeing a  _doctor_  violently stabbing a dead body probably raised a few warning flags in the cop's head.

She just hoped he would let her explain before he made any decisions or jumped to conclusions.

Finally she moved around the gurney where Hoyt's mutilated body lay with her knife still embedded in his gut. There was a door that led into the viewing room and she pulled it open to step into the room with the sheriff, pulling the handkerchief off her face as she went.

Rick was watching her every move as if she was going to attack him and it wasn't until she uncovered her lower face that he seemed to relax just slightly.  _Just slightly_.

She didn't know what to say or where to even begin, so instead she avoided it.

"How did things go with Carol?" She asked as she tried to steady her breathing.

His eyes wandered to Hoyt's body and she thought he would ask her about that instead, but then he answered. "She's not here. I couldn't bring her back here with my children. My family." It looked like just thinking about the other woman was making him angry. "She has a car and supplies, she'll be fine."

Thea nodded slowly. She hadn't wanted Carol here when Ty returned because of what he could possibly do to her, and now she wondered what they were supposed to do about it. Would they tell Ty or pretend like Carol had gone away on her own? All these questions would have to wait.

"What's going on here?" Rick was wondering, motioning towards the body on the gurney.

She bowed her head, avoiding his eyes and the conversation that was about to start. She didn't want to tell him, but she had promised Karen she would. Granted that had been when they were worried about Hoyt attacking someone else, but Thea felt like she was obligated now to carry out that promise.

"Uh…that thing I wanted to talk to you about…" She trailed off and looked into the other room. "He was involved in that."

When she didn't say anything more for a full minute he responded. "Involved how?"

This was probably going to be the hardest thing she ever did but there was no way to get out of telling him. She was stuck. "Do you remember Josh? He came with Hoyt in the Decatur group."

Rick looked tired of the run-around, but nodded. "He killed himself in the showers."

She didn't need that reminder. "Yeah, he did that because of me. Because of Hoyt."

"Wha-Why?" he stammered, growing frustrated.

Her eyes closed and she took a deep breath before meeting his gaze. "That night when Tyreese took my watch and I went to the library, Hoyt and Josh attacked me."

The sheriff stiffened, his back straightening as he took in what she was saying. It was starting to make sense to him now, she could tell.

"Josh he…uh…he held me down and Hoyt…" she looked away from Rick and took in a shaky breath, shaking her head slowly. "He kicked me a few times, that's what really happened to my ribs. And then he…he…" she couldn't say it out loud, it was too hard. Luckily for her Rick seemed to get the point.

"I—I get it." He said in a tight voice. He pinched the bridge of his nose, something she noticed he did a lot in high stress situations, and then he began to pace the small room. "Did Josh…?"

She knew what he was asking. Thankfully the answer was no, she couldn't imagine something like that happening to her twice. "No, he refused. But he helped keep me there, keep me quiet. That's what made him kill himself, he felt guilty."

Rick stopped pacing to face her, one hand on his hip while the other gesticulated in her direction. "Why didn't you say anything? We could have done something, we could have handled this."

She couldn't help but laugh. "I tried. I tried so many times but I could never—I lost my gumption or something would happen to distract me. And I was afraid. I didn't think it mattered if something happened to me…I'm just some random person your group came across who happened to be a doctor. That's why I'm here. That's my role here. And I didn't think I could just  _waltz_  up to The Council and say 'hey this guy raped me' and have—"

"—You really think that? That you're just here to be our  _doctor_?"

There was a look in Rick's eyes that had her clamming up. He looked genuinely disturbed by the notion that she was only important to them because of her medical skills. But _wasn't_  that why they kept her around? She wasn't particularly close to anyone besides Karen and Tyreese, and that had always made her wonder if they wanted her around or if they needed her.

She shrugged. "Is that wrong to assume? I have two friends here…or I guess I have one now if he still wants to talk to me after he finds out I helped Carol escape his wrath. I just thought that you guys wanted me here because of my skills. And my knowledge. My expertise."

The sheriff took two steps forward and nodded. "We do want you here because of that. Doctors are hard to find in this new world." He admitted.

She felt her heart sink. Thinking something is true and having it confirmed were two different things.

"But," he added. "We kept you around because you're a good person. We all like you, Thea, we just don't have a good way of showing it. Especially after everything we've been through and had to do to get this far."

Suddenly she felt bad for what she had said. She was a fool, and maybe it was the trauma that made her that way. She wondered if this conversation would change the way Rick saw her more than what happened to her would.

The sheriff spoke again, this time in a softer tone. "I'm sorry this happened to you. I wish…I wish we could have prevented it. And I'm sorry we made you feel like you couldn't say anything."

She felt like she should be apologizing too for some reason, but she didn't say anything and the room fell silent for a long moment.

Finally, Rick looked over to Hoyt's body and the knife still sticking up out of his stomach. "Maybe it's best you didn't tell me right away. If I'd have known…he probably wouldn't have lived long enough to get sick." He admitted.

She was shocked by that. When he had said earlier they could have taken care of things she hadn't thought that meant  _killing_ Hoyt, but she could see in his eyes that he meant it. There was a fierceness there that made her throat tighten; he  _cared_  about her.

"Does anyone else know about this?" he was asking her.

Thea nodded. "Karen knew. Maggie kind of forced me to tell her. And I don't know how, but Beth figured it out. She told me I should talk to Carol. That's what I was going to do when I heard her confess."

He could only nod in response and then he turned to gaze at the body in the other room. She wondered what he was thinking, as she could see the wheels turning in his head, and she wondered if he would treat her differently now.

"We need to get rid of the body."

Well  _that_  was unexpected. "I—what?"

"Unless you want to explain why you had to stab him a couple dozen times to put him down?"

"No," He was right. How had she planned on getting that by Herschel when they took the body to burn? She hadn't thought that far in advance. "No, I don't want anyone else to know."

Rick nodded again and then pulled a pair of gloves from his back pocket, the ones he wore when digging around in the garden. "Let's do it before Herschel comes looking for you."

* * *

After burning Hoyt's body Rick had sent her back to the admin building to rest and she hadn't found it in her to protest; revenge was exhausting. She had gone back to the little office that was deemed hers and passed out on the stinky futon.

She woke up several hours later and was surprised to find it was already dark outside. She wondered if Daryl and the others had made it back with the meds yet, but surely someone would have woken her to help. And if they hadn't returned, how many more people had died in A-block while they were waiting?

Shit. Herschel was probably exhausted doing it all by himself.

She stood and stretched before grabbing her knife and heading out of the building and towards A-block to see if the vet needed any help. Up ahead she spotted Rick and Carl by one of the fences. There had to be at least fifty walkers piled up on that one section of fence and the two men trying to put up posts to keep the chain-link from giving out.

Jogging across the courtyard and into the guard tower that was connected to the walkway between fences, she called out to them. "You guys need any help?"

Just as Rick had turned to respond a portion of the fence being held up by wooden posts made a strange creaking noise. Thea stepped in that direction to see what was going on, sidestepping the Grimes men, and then as she came to a stop two of the wooden posts cracked in half.

The fence began to fall towards her and she reached out to grab at one of the metal poles. Rick came running over to her and threw his weight against the fence too, but then the posts had completely broken and the chain-link fell quickly with the weight of the near thirty walkers.

"Shit!" Thea exclaimed just as Rick grabbed her arm roughly and yanked her out of the way.

"Run!" Rick yelled to her and Carl, shoving the doctor towards the kid.

Thea stumbled and then caught her footing, following Carl as he ran for the guard tower. A glance back told her that the walkers had spilled into the walkway and Rick was doing his best to evade their grasping hands.

"Rick, hurry!" Thea shouted back to him. She and Carl made it into the base of the guard tower and she held the door open for the sheriff.

"Dad, come on! Come on!"

Walkers were gaining on Rick, but he managed to slide into the guard tower with them and Thea slammed the door just as the hoard reached them. The dead beasts began to bang hungrily against the metal and she faced the others in a pant.

"This way," Rick led them to the other side of the tower and they went through the door that Thea had come through not even two minutes ago.

Back in the courtyard the three turned to watch the walkers. They were growling and snarling at the survivors, pressing themselves against the inner fence, the fence that led to the courtyard. It began to sway with the weight and Thea backed up a few inches instinctively.

"Dad, what do we do?" Carl asked.

Rick glanced around for an answer. "Maybe I could back the bus up against the fence." He suggested.

Thea and Carl responded at the same time. "Will it hold?"

The sheriff looked between the two of them in silence for a long moment before grabbing each of their arms. "Come on." He led them towards the row of industrial sized laundry baskets, the ones the prison had used but were now filled with weapons and ammo of different kinds. Dropping their arms, he reached in and pulled out two assault rifles and handed one to Carl and then Thea, followed by a magazine to load into them.

"Pockets." He instructed as he gave them each two more magazines. He pocketed some of his own as they did as he said. "Got it?"

"Yep." Carl replied as Thea nodded.

They moved back over to stand near the fence again. The walkers were almost through now.

"All right, listen to me."

The two lesser experienced gunmen nodded and turned to give him their full attention.

Rick began to demonstrate on his own gun what he was telling them. "Magazine goes in here. Release is here. Make sure it latches. Pull back the operating rod and rounds feed up. Keep squeezing the trigger for rapid fire, okay?" When they finished doing as he showed them, he leaned down to look in Carl's eyes. "You shoot or you run. Don't let them get close, okay?"

Before the young kid could respond the fence let out a metallic shriek and the walkers were through. Rick and Carl lifted their guns and began to fire, it took Thea a second longer but then she followed suit.

She had never fired a gun like this before and she found she didn't care much for the way it vibrated in her hands. Still she shot down a few walkers as they came into the courtyard, surprising herself when she hit them in the head.

A click to her right told her Rick's mag was empty and he yanked it from the gun, reaching into his pocket for another. "Back up!" He hollered at them as he reloaded.

Thea took a few steps back and fired at a couple of walkers that were getting too close. Beside her Rick was forced to use the butt of his rifle to smack a walker back and Carl shot it down before tossing his father a new magazine as the one the sheriff had just loaded had only housed a few rounds.

There were several minutes of rapid firing that had Thea's ears ringing, but eventually all the walkers were either lying dead on the concrete or pinned beneath dead ones and still snapping at them. Rick had them put the guns away and they grabbed crowbars and canes that had been sharpened for stabbing into rotted heads through the fences, then they walked through the pile of walkers to kill any of them still animated.

"This could have gone a lot worse." Thea commented when Carl had put down the final walker.

Rick nodded in agreement and glanced towards his son. Before he could speak, however, a car engine came from down by the main gate and they spotted a dark colored mini-van coming up the road.

Carl turned to look at his dad. "Dad…everything's gonna be okay." He said before dropping his cane in a bin and running down to let the returning group in.

As the van drove up the dirt path Rick pulled the main gate open for them to come into the courtyard. A glance through the windshield told her all were returning safely. Tyreese had the back door slid open before the vehicle had even stopped and he spoke to Rick urgently.

"Sasha? How's Sasha?"

Rick shook his head. "I don't know. I'm sorry."

Daryl opened the passenger door and eyed the dead walkers and the blood on Rick and Thea's clothing before turning to Ty. "Get in there. We got this." He said, patting the larger man on the shoulder.

Tyreese ran off towards A-Block and Bob and Daryl moved around to open the back end of the van to get the supplies out. Thea joined them, taking a bag from Daryl as he offered it.

Nodding to Bob, she spoke with a bit of cheerfulness returning. "Come on, we've got some patients to take care of." She felt a tiny bit normal saying that, but shook it off as she led the way.

* * *

They had saved a dozen people with the medicine and still had enough left over should anyone catch the flu again. All in all it was a good night, and Thea felt very pleased to have been a part of helping. Once everyone was resting with IV's in their arms she left the cell block and went to move her stuff back into her cell in C-Block, and then she returned to the courtyard to sit on the bleachers.

It was nice out, not too hot or cold, and the stars and moon were bright enough that there was no need for her flashlight. She sat in silence for a while just enjoying the cool night air and the sense of accomplishment that came from saving a patient. She had missed that feeling.

A clinking noise from behind her had her turning and she spotted Daryl approaching. He was lighting a cigarette as he walked, the clinking noise had been his lighter. The archer came to a stop beside her and she was struck with how similar this was to that night he had questioned her about the bruise on her temple. Only this time she was almost completely healed and her attacker was dead.

"Hey," She said softly, though it didn't seem necessary.

He squinted at her even though it wasn't exactly bright out, and then made a grunting noise. "Hey."

It was odd to hear him say it for some reason, like small talk just came out weird from a man like him. He was the strong and silent type, she decided.

"You guys made it back just in the nick of time." She commented. This too seemed unnecessary. But she wasn't exactly sure how to talk to a guy like Daryl Dixon. She hadn't had problems with men in the past, but he was a different breed.

When she realized that she was looping Daryl in with past  _rendezvous_ she felt herself pale.

"Almost didn't make it."

She frowned, her brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"

He took a long drag on his cigarette and the red glow on the end lit up his face hauntingly. "Had a run in with a giant herd. Must've been two or three hundred of them."

"Jesus." She breathed out, her heart racing just a little. A herd that size could blow through the prison in one fell swoop. And the four scavengers had managed to evade them somehow.

"Y'all had your own problems here though." Daryl added, eyes on the pile of dead walkers on the other end of the courtyard.

She shrugged. That herd was not like their herd at all but if he wanted to compare the two she wasn't going to fight him. "We managed. So did you."

They locked eyes and fell silent for several seconds that seemed to drag on forever. And then she wasn't sure what he saw in her eyes but he bowed his head for a second before looking out over the field.

"I'm sorry about Karen," he said suddenly. "Y'all were close."

She stiffened in both surprise at him bringing it up and in pain of the memory of finding her best friend burnt to a crisp. Her eyes fell to the concrete. "Yeah." It was all she could say.

"We're gonna find who did it. Make 'em pay."

He didn't know about Carol yet, she realized, and she tried her best to make it look like she didn't know anything about it either. "She reminded me so much of my little sister," She said, smiling sadly at the ground. She didn't know why she brought Cat up, but it was better than accidentally blurting out that Carol had murdered Karen and David.

Daryl eyed her as he pulled another drag off his cigarette. "Didn't know you had a sister." He spoke gruffly and curiously. Strangely it seemed that he was interested by this line of conversation.

Thea nodded and faced him. "Yeah. Catherine. She was always the troublemaker, always the adventurous one."

"She dead?"

"I…I don't know. I was with her when everything happened. We were together for a few weeks but then there was a herd. She took my nephew, Hank, to hide and I led the walkers away, when I made it back they were both gone. I don't know if they're dead or if they're still out there somewhere…"

He was staring at her as she trailed off and she looked up at the stars again in an attempt to keep her emotions at bay. Maybe somewhere out there Cat was looking up at the same stars wondering where  _she_ was; cheesy as that thought was it comforted her just a bit.

"Had an older brother, Merle." Daryl told her. "He died and came back. I had to put him down."

It felt like there was more to that story, but she wasn't going to push him into telling her. Instead she offered him a small smile as comfort. "I'm sorry. I can't imagine having to do something like that."

They fell silent once again and she could smell his cigarette burning as he lifted it to his mouth. She eyed him in her peripheral vision for a moment before turning towards him again and nodding to the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

"You got another one of those?"

He grunted and pulled the pack out, offering it to her. "Thought you didn't smoke?"

As she pulled one out she shrugged. "It's been a stressful evening." She commented.

He flipped open the lighter and lit it, holding it towards her. Thea put the stick between her lips and leaned forward to light the end on the flame. The first puff of smoke that went down her throat and into her lungs burned, but fortunately she managed to not end up in a coughing fit like she had seen so many people do in movies. She exhaled a puff of smoke towards the fence so it wouldn't go in his face.

When she heard him scoff she turned in his direction in confusion. "What?"

Daryl shrugged one of his shoulders. "Thought you'd start coughing like a girl." He informed her.

"I'm English. We're kind of bred to be smokers." She retorted with a raised eyebrow.

Surprisingly that brought a chuckle out of the man's lips and he shook his head at her. "Makes perfect sense." Was his reply.

She found she liked this side of him. They weren't arguing or being awkward and she wondered why she hadn't made more of an effort to talk with him before now. She switched the cigarette to her right hand so she could tuck her hair behind her left ear and as she lifted the stick back to her mouth he motioned towards her hand.

"What happened there?"

She looked down and realized that her knuckles were scabbed over where they had busted when she had punched Carol. Should she explain to him or just pretend she got mad and punched a wall? Ultimately the truth fell from her lips before she could stop it. "I—uh-punched Carol."

"You did what?" Daryl asked, stiffening.

Thea sighed and took a long, long pull on the cigarette before responding. "I can't tell you why, Rick wants to talk to you about it in the morning, but I promise you I had good reason."

He was still stiff and his cig had fallen from his fingers and was smoking on the ground by his boot. She wondered just how angry she had made him, but then he stopped out the cigarette and replied. "Yeah, you better had." He growled before turning and stomping towards C-Block.

When she was alone she stared down at the busted knuckles of her hand and what was left of the lit cigarette hanging between her index and middle fingers. She looked rough, if Cat saw her she would probably ask if she'd joined a gang or something.

She'd answer yes.

* * *

"Man, you couldn't have waited until we got back?" Daryl asked angrily as he paced the small space on the upper level of C-block where he stood with Rick.

Thea was standing down below watching them anxiously, wondering how the hell Daryl was going to take this whole thing.

Rick's head tilted and he squinted at the man. "Till  _Tyreese_ got back?"

Daryl shook his head, scoffed. "I could've handled that."

"Hey," Rick called to get his attention. When he didn't turn he repeated the word. Daryl faced him and he continued. "She killed two of our own. She couldn't be here. She's gonna be all right. She has a car, supplies, weapons. She's a survivor."

The archer pointed at the sheriff and growled angrily. "Stop saying that like you don't believe it."

"With the way Thea reacted I didn't think letting Tyreese get ahold of her was safe."

Thea bowed her head and eyed her knuckles for the hundredth time.

"She did it. She said it was for us. She wasn't sorry." Rick said.

Daryl shook his head. "Man, that's her, but that ain't her." He turned and walked a few feet down and leaned against the railing. "What are we supposed to do about those two girls?"

Thea hadn't thought about Lizzie and Mika until that moment, and she found she wasn't at all surprised that it was  _Daryl_ who had remembered them. It was odd but he had taken a liking to all the kids in the prison, and they all thought he was pretty cool too.

Rick sighed. "I told her we'd look after them." He paused for several seconds and glanced down at Thea. "We haven't told Tyreese yet. I don't know how he's gonna take it."

Daryl straightened up and met Rick's eyes for a moment before nodding. "Let's go find out." He moved past Rick and down the stairs, eying her for a moment when he walked by.

Rick followed and then Thea followed him. She didn't know how Ty would react either, but maybe if she was there it would soften the blow. She was his friend after all; she might be able to talk him down should he get aggressive.

Beth informed them that she saw Tyreese heading down the tombs so they went down the dark hallways one by one looking for the man. After a few minutes of searching they heard feet shuffling down a darker hallway and they stood still at the opening that led into it.

"Tyreese. You down here?" Rick called out in a loud whisper, just in case a walker had got in.

A few seconds passed and then a response came. "Rick that you?"

Thea followed as the two men in front of her moved down the hall slowly. Tyreese appeared in the light of a doorway with a frantic look on his face that had her frowning. What was he so troubled about already?

"You guys gotta see this." He told them, his voice urgent.

"Can we take a beat?" Rick asked. "There's something we need to talk about."

Ty shook his head. "It can wait. Come on."

He turned away to return down the hall and Rick and Daryl shared a glance before they followed. She heard the clicking of Ty's flashlight and then he was telling them to look at something. Daryl moved past Ty to get a better view and she saw it. A rabbit was nailed to a plank of wood in a spread eagle position. Its stomach had been cut open and pinned back, organs were missing. It looked like someone had been dissecting the animal.

"I was just looking for…answers…and I found this." Tyreese explained. "Same person that killed Karen and David did this. Remember the rats at the fence? They showed up the same day she was killed. We got a psychopath living with us."

Rick turned to Ty again, ready to explain about Carol. "Tyreese."

The bigger man cut him off. "We got to find him, Rick. And I'm not going to sleep until we do."

Rick looked back at Thea and then to Daryl. When the latter nodded he took a breath. "Tyreese, whoever did this, I don't think that's who killed Karen." He said slowly.

"Why?" Ty demanded to know.

Before anyone could answer a low rumble came from somewhere outside and the whole building shook. Dust and plaster sprinkled from the ceiling and Thea had to grab the wall to keep from falling over. When the shaking stopped, Daryl swung his crossbow off his back.

"Come on!" He exclaimed, racing down the hall towards the entrance to the tombs. They followed after him quickly and ran through C-Block and to the courtyard. Carl, Maggie and Beth came running out of the door on the other side of the court and ran towards the fence.

"Get back!" Rick called to them so they would hide behind the guard tower.

Thea came to a halt beside the fence and peeked around the tower to see who the hell was attacking them. She gasped out loud when she saw an actual tank surrounded by four cars on each side just outside the outer ring of fences. A man stood on top of the tank with his hands on his hips as if it were just another day for him. The people standing on the ground all held guns of different kinds. They looked like they were ready for a fight.

"Rick!" The man on the tank shouted. "Come down here. We need to talk."

Thea turned to look at the sheriff in anticipation. Who was this strange man and what did he want? The look of fear on Rick's face told her this wasn't going to end well.

"It's not up to me! There's a council now. They run this place." Rick called back to the man.

There was a pause and then: "Is Herschel on the council?"

A woman with a rifle moved to one of the cars and opened the back door. Then she was pulling the older man from the backseat and moving him to kneel in front of the tank.

Thea covered her hand with her mouth, she heard Maggie and Beth call out to their dad.

"What about Michonne? She on the council too?" The woman was pulled from a different car by a man and placed on her knees beside Herschel.

Rick looked like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. Thea could see a vein popping up in his neck.

"I don't make decisions anymore." He yelled.

"You're making the decisions today, Rick. Come down here, let's…let's have that talk."

As Rick turned to look at Daryl, Thea shook her head. This wasn't going to be good at all, and she certainly didn't want the man she had grown to see as a friend going  _closer_ to the man with a tank and an army.

Daryl nodded his head though and Rick turned to Carl. He placed a hand on his son's shoulder and whispered something to him before reluctantly going to the gate. He pulled it open and stepped onto the dirt path, Daryl closing the gate behind him, and then began to walk down through the field to the fence to talk with the stranger.

"We can't take 'em all on. We'll go through the admin building through the woods like we planned. We ain't got the numbers anymore." Daryl said to the group of people consisting of Thea, Maggie, Beth, Carl, Ty, Sasha, Bob, and another man from D-Block who Thea didn't know.

Turning to Sasha, Daryl continued. "When's the last time someone checked the stash on the bus?"

The younger Williams sibling shook her head. "Day before we hit the Big Spot. We were running low on rations then. We're lower now."

"Yeah, we'll manage." Daryl replied. "Things go south, everyone heads for that bus. Let everybody know."

Tyreese spoke up from behind his sister. "What if everybody isn't on it when things go bad? How long do we wait?" he wondered.

The archer was slowly moving towards the laundry bins full of guns and Thea glanced down at Rick. He was all the way down by the fences now and the two leaders were talking but she obviously couldn't hear a word they said.

"As long as we can." Daryl told Ty. He grasped one of the bins and rolled it slowly towards the little group. Pulling out a gun, he offered it to Bob. "You good?" He asked, and the two men shared a look that had Thea wondering.

"Yeah." Bob said after a long moment, his voice soft as he took the weapon.

Daryl went back to the bin and picked out two assault rifles similar to the one Thea had used the night before when the herd had taken down the fences. He touched one gun to the back of Maggie's leg to get her attention, and then the other into Beth's hand before he doled out weapons to the rest of them.

As he handed Thea a rifle, he motioned with his head towards the cell blocks. "When it gets bad you go and get the sick and get them on the bus," He told her in a low voice. "They won't make it without a doctor, you and I both know it."

The idea of abandoning her post didn't sit well with her; she wanted to help fight as much as she could. Daryl was right though, the sick wouldn't survive long outside the walls without someone there to help them, so she nodded in agreement. There was no time to argue.

They separated and he went to stand beside Carl. Thea moved to the other side of the guard tower so she could run to the blocks quickly if she needed to. Tyreese and Sasha were to her left, Bob was to her right, and she felt like a war would break out any second.

Resting the barrel of her gun in one of the holes in the fence, she looked through the scope at the man on the tank and was surprised to find he wore a black eyepatch over his right eye. It gave him a menacing look, which he more than likely used to his advantage.

Suddenly the man jumped from the tank and moved to grab Michonne's katana from one of the men by his side. Then he was moving to stand to Herschel's right, placing the sword against the old man's neck in threat.

Thea gasped as Maggie and Beth cried out, and she was sure that it was all going to be downhill from here. What was the strange man hoping to gain from this? Was he just trying to exact revenge on the survivors in the prison or had he come with other intentions? Her answer came from another man who was hanging out of the top hatch of the tank, his arm resting lazily on the gun mounted there as if he wasn't threatening the lives of so many people.

"What we want is what you go. Period. Time for you to leave, asshole!" He exclaimed loud enough for those standing in the courtyard to hear.

They wanted the prison. But where would  _they_  go? And would Rick really give it up? Would this mini militia kill them all if they didn't leave? She wished she could be down there to hear what was going on. Wished she could stop the heavy thudding of her heart.

She could see Rick gesturing wildly as he seemed to be pleading with the one-eyed man. And then the sword came away from Herschel's neck slowly. She felt a tiny bit of triumph at the notion that they  _may_ make it out of this, but then that hope was squashed like a tiny little bug beneath a giant's boot.

The one-eyed man reared the katana back and then swung it forward, the blade sliced into the kneeling old man's neck and blood spurted from the wound as his head hung on by less than half of the muscles that should have held it in place on the vet's shoulders.

Screams ripped through the air from Maggie and Beth's direction, Thea felt her own throat burn and she realized she had cried out too. Tears stung her eyes but as she heard bullets rip through the air she squeezed the trigger on her rifle and hoped for the best as she aimed towards the group outside the fences. They would pay for this.

The rifle was kicking back into her shoulder but she didn't have time to be fazed by it. She heard a rumble and then the tank was plowing through the two fences that separated the field and the outside of the prison. She tilted her gun and spotted a man in a trucker hat running through the newly formed gap, a second later a bullet erupted from the weapon in her hands and sank itself into the man's chest. He fell to the ground and she moved to find another person to put down, not caring how this might change her.

"I'm out of ammo!" Beth exclaimed over the gunfire.

"Run for the bus, I'll cover you!" Maggie shouted to her sister and then the two were moving away from the fence.

Thea knew it was her turn to move now, and she fired one last shot at a woman in a camouflage jacket before turning to race towards the cell block. A loud boom came from behind and then a portion of the building above her was blown to smithereens, debris raining down on her. She covered her head with the arm not holding the rifle and kept moving, not stopping even as rubble pelted her.

Inside the cell block was chaos and she ran up to her room quickly to grab her pack. She stuffed her axe, first aid kit, and bag of toiletries into the pocket before slinging the bag onto her back and making her way back down the stairs.

"Come on, we gotta get to the bus!" She exclaimed to an older black lady and a group of others who had been cowering in the corner.

The older woman stood and followed, ushering the others to do the same. "What the hell is going on out there?" She demanded to know as they ran.

"You don't want to know." Thea replied sharply, Herschel's partial decapitation coming to mind.

She led them outside and onto the bus where Beth was already waiting. As they boarded the blonde slipped down the stairs.

"Where are you going?" called Thea.

Beth turned to reply as she moved, sparing her only a glance. There were tears staining her cheeks. "I have to find Judith and the kids." And then she was halfway across the courtyard before anyone could stop her.

Nodding to herself, Thea faced the few on the bus. "Okay, everyone stay down. We're going to wait until Beth comes with the kids and then we're getting out of here!"

Another boom came and rocked the bus. The tank was now  _in_ the courtyard and members of the attacking group were spilling into the concreted area too.

Beth better hurry.

Feet thudded on the stairs of the bus and the doctor whipped her head around to find Maggie and Glenn. The former searched the bus frantically for her sister. "Beth? Where's Beth?" she cried out.

"She went to find Judith!" the old lady told her, pointing Maggie in the right direction when she asked where the younger Greene girl had run.

Glenn tried weakly to follow his wife as she exited the bus. "We'll find her. She'll be okay." He was saying, but Maggie was quick to push him back into the vehicle.

"NO."

"What? No, you're not going by yourself."

Maggie forced Glenn to sit on the stairs. "I'll be right back." She insisted before turning to run in the direction Beth had disappeared.

"Maggie…" Glenn called weakly, his voice breaking pitifully.

The sound of bullets pelting the back end of the bus had Thea jolting in the driver's seat and she looked towards the back to make sure no one had been hit. "We have to go!" She exclaimed. It wasn't safe for them here anymore.

Glenn stood on shaky feet and stumbled down the stairs. "I'm not leaving without Maggie." He said.

"Glenn, no!" Thea urged him, reaching out to grasp his forearm. He could barely move, much less fight. And he didn't have a gun.

The Korean man faced her and the look in his eyes, the fierceness mixed with fear, was stunning. "Thea, I can't leave her. I can't."

"We can't wait for you." She whispered, eyes wide as she tried to stop tears from falling. She didn't want to leave him behind, but there wouldn't be any other option if he got off the bus.

He was nodding. "I know. I know."

As she shook her head she felt her chin tremble and he clambered up the steps again, wrapping his arms around her in an almost too tight embrace. "Good luck." He whispered in her ear as she clung to him.

When he pulled away she thrust the rifle into his arms. "You too." She replied, her throat tight. He stepped off the bus and she blinked, tears finally falling silently as she watched him run towards the cell block.

For a moment she watched him go, but then the back of the bus received another spray of bullets and she leapt into action. She pulled the lever to shut the door and turned the key in the ignition. The engine roared to life and she prayed this was similar to driving a truck as she shifted gears and pressed her foot on the gas pedal and sped down the courtyard towards the back gate. She didn't slow down as she plowed through the chain link and a moment later they were speeding down a dirt road away from the prison.

Away from their friends. Away from their family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Okay, I posted the first ten chapters so I'm going to let you guys read and let me know how you like it! Like I said before, this story is already posted (but not completed yet) on fanfiction.net so I'm just bringing the chapters over here to get more readers. There are 39 chapters posted on FF.net, but I'm only posting 10 on here now to ease into it. 
> 
> I hope you guys are enjoying this story so far!
> 
> **Shout out to Rick Grimes for being the kind of friend who will help you get rid of a body!**


End file.
